*     JUN241910      * 

BS1355 
,4-,TG94 

Division 


EZRA  STUDIES 


EZRA     STUDIES 


[*     JUN  24  1910      *) 


CHARLES  C.  TOEREY 

PR0FES80K    OF   SEMITIC   LANGUAGES   IN    YALE    UNIVERSITY 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OP  CHICAGO  PRESS 

1910 


Copyright  1910  By 
Charles  C.  Toreey 


Published  January  1910 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Press 

Chicago,  Illinois,  U.  S.  A. 


TO 

SIR  HENRY  H.  HOWORTH 
D.C.L.,  F.R.S.,  K.C.I.E. 

PIONEER  IN  EZRA  STUDIES 
THIS  VOLUME  IS  DEDICATED 
AS   A  TOKEN   OF   HIGH   ESTEEM 


PREFACE 

Thirteen  years  ago,  in  1896,  I  published  a  pamphlet  entitled 
The  Composition  and  Historical  Valne  of  Ezra-Xehcmiah,  which 
appeared  in  Giessen  as  one  of  the  Beihefte  of  the  Zeitschrift  filr 
die  aWestamcntliche  W issenschaft .  It  presented  in  concise  form 
certain  conclusions  which  I  had  reached  a  year  or  two  previously, 
in  studying  the  so-called  ''Apocryphal  Ezra,"  or  First  Esdras. 
At  alDout  the  same  time  when  I  was  carrying  on  my  investigations 
appeared  the  articles  of  Sir  Henry  Howorth,  in  the  Academy 
(see  the  references  given  on  p.  16),  the  pamphlets  of  Hoonacker 
and  Kosters,'  and  the  more  elaborate  treatise  of  Eduard  Meyer 
(see  below).  My  own  conclusions  were  formulated  before  I  had 
seen  any  of  these  publications,  and  differed  widely  from  each  and 
all  of  them  at  almost  every  point.  I  found  myself  in  agreement 
with  Howorth,  however,  in  his  important  contention  that  "I 
Esdras"  represents  the  old  Greek  translation  of  Chron.- 
Ezr.-Neh. ;  and  with  Kosters  in  his  argument  (previously  set 
forth,  less  completely,  by  Schrader  and  others)  that  the  Biblical 
account  of  the  return  of  exiles  from  Babylonia  to  Jerusalem  in 
the  time  of  Cyrus  is  untrustworthy. 

The  conclusions  reached  and  stated  in  my  pamphlet  have  been 
adopted,  in  general,  by  H.  P.  Smith  in  his  Old  Testament  History, 
and  by  Kent  in  his  Studenfs  Old  Testament,  but  in  each  case 
with  little  or  no  discussion  of  the  questions  involved.  So  far  as 
I  know,  the  booklet  has  never  been  reviewed  or  estimated  in  print, 
except  in  four  brief  German  notices,  to  three  of  which  I  have 
occasion  to  refer  in  the  present  volume.  It  has  been  mentioned 
or  quoted  in  a  few  places,  generally  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  that 
it  had  not  been  read,  but  only  looked  at  here  and  there.  Siegfried, 
in  the  tolerably  long  list  of  monographs  given  in  the  preface  to 
his  Commentary  on  Ezra-Nehemiah  (1901),  does  not  include  it. 
Driver,  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament,  names  it  in  his  list  of 
monographs,  but  otherwise  takes  no  notice  of  it,  even  when 
discussing    the    questions   with    which    it    is   chiefly    concerned. 

'Van  Hoonacker,  N4Mmie  et  Esdras  (1890);  ^6h4mie  en  Van  20  d' 
Artaxerxes  I  et  Esdras  en  Van  7  d' Artaxerxes  II  (1892);  Zorobabel  et  le 
second  Temple  (1892);  and  Kosters,  Herstel  van  Israel  in  het  Perzische 
Tijdvak  (1894),  German  trans,  by  Basedow  in  1895. 

vii 


viii  Preface 

One  or  two  scholars  were  sufficiently  impressed  by  the  book 
to  express  themselves  with  emphasis.  Thus  Klostermann,  in 
the  article  "Esra  und  Nehemia"  in  Hauck's  Reulencyclopddie,^ 
vol.  V,  p.  501,  remarks:  "Zuletzt  ist  zu  erwahnen  weniger  der 
Kosters  in  der  Ersetzung  der  Ueberlieferung  durch  tibelberatene 
Phantasie  tiberbietende  Torrey,  Composition  and  historical  value 
of  Ezra-Nehemia,  Giessen  181)6,  als  vielmehr  Ed.  Meyer,  Die 
Entstehung  des  Judentums,  u.  s.  w.""  It  is  true  that  such  a 
revolutionary  treatise  as  mine  could  make  no  favorable  impression 
on  those  who  had  not  the  time  to  examine  it  carefully,  or  on  those 
who  cannot  be  relied  on  to  distinguish  a  sound  argument  from 
an  unsound  one.  I  must  admit,  also,  that  this  first  publication 
was  in  its  plan  not  very  well  fitted  to  make  converts.  It  pre- 
sented the  whole  argument  in  condensed  form,  leaving  many 
steps  merely  indicated  in  a  few  words,  or  covered  by  an  assertion, 
where  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  the  reader  could  see  for 
himself  the  facts  and  processes  which  had  only  been  hinted  at. 
But  things  which  are  self-evident  to  one  who  has  himself  worked 
through  a  large  part  of  the  material  are  often  less  plain  to  others. 
Moreover,  an  essay  which  flatly  contradicts  most  of  the  funda- 
mental tenets  of  modern  Old  Testament  science  in  its  field  (and 
that  a  very  important  field)  has  every  presumption  against  it, 
especially  when  it  is  presented  by  one  who  is  unknown  as  an 
investigator  in  this  sphere.  It  is  only  natural  to  decide,  at  the 
first  glance,  that  the  new  conclusions  cannot  possibly  be  right, 
and  need  not  be  seriously  considered.  I  believe,  however,  that  the 
main  arguments  offered  in  my  ComposUion  of  Ezra-Nehemiah  are 
sure  to  be  cogent  for  any  one  who  has  studied  the  material  closely 
enough  to  be  able  to  follow  them  through.  The  question  of  the 
general  acceptance  of  the  conclusions  presented  there  and  here 
is  only  a  question  of  time. 

The  preceding  briefer  investigation  seemed  chiefly  destructive. 
The  author,  whose  principal  tasks  and  interests  are  not  in  the  Old 

^Similarly,  Ed.  Konig,  in  the  article  ''Ezra  and  Nehemiah "  in  the 
Standard  Bible  Dictionary  (1909),  p.  247,  writes:  "The  trustworthiness  of  the 
documents  and  memoirs  which  have  been  used  in  the  books  of  Ezra-Nehemiah 
has  been  demonstrated  at  length,  especially  by  Eduard  Meyer,  Die  Entsteh- 
ung des  Judentums,  1896,  by  whom  the  extreme  views  presented  in  C.  C. 
Torrey's  Composition  and  Historical  Value  of  Ezra-Nehemiah  are  shown  to 
be  without  critical  foundation."  Which  of  the  two  treatises  was  without 
critical  foundation  will  be  evident,  I  think,  to  those  who  read  the  successive 
chapters  of  the  present  volume,  especially  chapter  vi. 


Preface  ix 

Testament  field,  had  not  then  the  opportunity  to  carry  it  out 
further,  but  hoped  that  some  other  investigator  would  see  that 
what  it  involved  was  not  the  mere  matter  of  a  few  passages,  or 
even  of  a  few  incidents  in  the  life  of  the  Jewish  people,  but  a 
thoroughgoing  revision  of  the  existing  notions  of  the  history  of 
their  national  growth  in  the  Persian  period,  their  institutions, 
and  their  religious  ideas.  Whoever  had  proceeded  thus  far  could 
hardly  fail  to  perceive  also  how  the  later  part  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment itself,  and  the  story  of  the  community  in  Jerusalem,  had 
now  for  the  first  time  become  comprehensible  and  self -consistent. 
No  such  coadjutor  appeared,  however;  hence  at  last  the  present 
work,  every  chapter  of  which   is  constructive. 

This  attempt  to  sketch  the  history  of  the  Jews  in  the  Persian 
period,  culminating  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  book,  differs  from 
all  preceding  ones  in  several  fundamental  particulars.  It  recog- 
nizes for  the  first  time  the  extent  of  the  Chronicler's  independent 
handiwork.  That  he  must  be  regarded  as  the  sole  author  of  the 
Ezra  story,  of  all  the  book  of  Nehemiah  after  chapter  (3,  and  of 
the  Artaxerxes  letter  in  Ezra  7,  is  here  demonstrated  conclusively. 
The  nature  and  purpose  of  his  work  are  also  discovered  and 
set  forth.  It  is  not  the  production  of  a  Levitical  historian  of 
small  ability  and  large  bias  (as  it  is  usually  regarded),  but  a 
great  undertaking  with  a  single  very  definite  aim  well  executed, 
an  elaborate  and  timely  championing  of  the  Jewish  sacred  insti- 
tutions, especially  in  opposition  to  the  Samaritans;  very  interesting 
and  very  important,  but  by  no  means  to  be  used  as  a  source  for 
the  history  of  Israel  under  Persian  rule.  Its  author  is,  demon- 
strably, not  a  mere  editor,  but  a  writer  possessed  of  a  rich  and  vig- 
orous imagination,  which  he  here  exercised  to  the  full.  Another 
important  point  of  difference  concerns  the  use  made  of  the 
Chronicler's  inde[)endent  work,  that  is,  all  of  his  narrative  which 
we  are  unable  to  control  from  other  sources.  It  is  here  shown 
that  every  part  of  it  either  lies  directly  in  the  line  of  his  main 
purpose  or  else  bears  other  marks  characteristic  of  his  own 
creations;  and  it  is  accordingly  left  entirely  out  of  account  in 
portraying  the  course  of  the  history.  There  was  no  return  of 
exiles,  no  scribe-potentate  Ezra,  no  law  brought  from  Babylonia, 
no  wholesale  expulsion  of  Gentile  wives  and  children.  The  book 
of  Ezra-Nehemiah  does  not  furnish  us  the  date  of  the  coni[)leti(Mi 
of  the  Pentateuch. 


X  Preface 

But  the  theory  here  set  forth  marks  a  new  departure  not  only 
in  its  treatment  of  the  Chronicler,  but  still  more  in  the  point  of 
view  from  which  it  estimates  the  later  writings  and  writers  of  the 
Old  Testament.  It  is  customary  to  measure  them,  one  and  all, 
by  the  Chronicler's  "Ezra,"  and  their  words  are  everywhere 
given  an  interpretation  to  correspond.  It  would  be  much  fairer 
to  take  as  the  standard  the  Second  Isaiah,  the  prophets  and 
teachers  of  the  restoration  period,  and  those  who  wrote  the  best 
part  of  the  Psalter,  giving  their  utterances  the  broad  interpreta- 
tion which  I  have  indicated,  and  to  which  they  are  fully  entitled. 
These  were  philosophers  and  poets  who  in  their  conception  of 
God  and  man  surpassed  all  the  other  sages  of  the  ancient  world, 
one  of  their  number,  moreover,  being  incomparably  the  profound- 
est  thinker  and  most  eloquent  writer  in  all  the  Old  Testament ; 
men  busied  with  the  greatest  concerns  of  human  life,  not  with 
the  petty  interests  attributed  to  them  by  our  commentators.  The 
seed  sown  by  their  predecessors  of  the  Hebrew  monarchy  did  not 
die,  nor  did  the  plant  which  sprung  from  it  dwindle  and  grow 
sickly,  while  the  Jews  remained  in  their  land;  it  prospered 
mightily  and  brought  forth  abundantly.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was 
the  true  child  of  his  people,  the  best  fruit  of  a  sublime  religious 
growth  which  in  modern  times  has  been  sadly  misunderstood. 
The  story  of  the  religion  of  Israel,  from  Deuteronomy  down  to 
the  time  of  the  Roman  rule,  is  not  a  story  of  deterioration,  but 
one  of  advance.  Moreover,  Judaism  grew  up  in  Judea,  it  was  not 
transplanted  from  foreign  soil.  The  fact  of  the  Dispersion, 
as  is  here  shown  for  the  first  time,  exercised  a  tremendous 
influence  all  through  the  Persian  period  and  thereafter,  and  its 
main  effect  on  the  Jews  of  the  home-land  was  broadening  and 
salutary.  The  messianic  and  universal  interpretation  of  the 
Second  Isaiah  which  is  found  in  the  Gospels  is  the  only  correct 
one.  To  put  the  whole  matter  in  a  few  words :  both  the  history 
of  Israel  after  the  fall  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  exegesis  of  the 
literature  of  that  period,  which  have  been  written  during  the  past 
generation  have  been  built  on  a  false  foundation  derived  from 
the  Chronicler's  work,  and  need  to  be  completely  revised.  To 
give  the  first  sketch  of  such  a  historical  reconstruction  is  the 
chief  purpose  of  the  present  volume,  and  especially  of  the  last 
chapter,  which  attempts  to  use  impartially  for  that  purpose  all 
the  trustworthy  evidence  which  we  possess. 


Preface  xi 

The  contributions  incidentally  made  to  the  science  of  Old 
Testament  literature  will  probably  also  be  found  interesting:  the 
proof  of  the  fact  that  ''First  Esdras"  is  a  rescued  fragment  of 
the  old  Grreek  translation  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah,  not  an 
apocryphal  writing;  the  light  thrown  on  some  of  the  versions  of 
these  books,  especially  the  demonstration  of  the  true  character  of 
the  much  misunderstood  and  misused  Lucianic  recension,  the 
proof  that  our  "canonical"  Greek  translation  is  that  of  Theodotion, 
the  publication  for  the  first  time  of  a  part  of  the  Hexaplar  text 
of  Nehemiah,  and  the  dethronement  of  Codex  B  from  the  high 
place  which  it  has  so  long  held  without  right;  the  first  presenta- 
tion of  the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  in  its  original  character 
and  extent,  with  the  demonstration  that  it  was  written  in  Aramaic; 
the  recovery,  for  the  "canonical"  Old  Testament,  of  the  lost 
chapter  which  originally  followed  the  first  chapter  of  Ezra,  and 
the  attempted  restoration  of  its  Hebrew  text,  rendered  back  from 
the  Greek;  the  manifold  evidence  given  to  show  that  among  the 
Jews  of  Jerusalem  in  the  Greek  period  it  was  commonly  believed 
that  Darius  Hystaspis  (supposed  by  them  to  be  a  Median  king, 
and  called  "Darius  the  Mede")  immediately  preceded  Cyrus; 
the  conclusive  proof  that  the  Aramaic  documents  in  Ezra  all  date 
from  the  Greek  period;  the  restoration  of  the  primitive  form  of 
the  long-debated  Ezra  story,  by  the  transposition  of  a  single 
block  of  narrative  belonging  to  a  section  which  ever  since  the 
second  century  B.C.  has  been  recognized  as  in  some  way  out  of 
place;  and  other  less  important  matters.  The  author  also  hopes 
that  some  of  the  observations  relating  to  text  and  versions  may 
stimulate  to  a  more  serious  pursuit  of  this  branch  of  scientific 
investigation.  If  the  historical  and  literary  study  of  the  Old 
Testament  books  is  still  in  its  childhood,  the  critical  study  of  the 
Hebrew  text  may  truly  be  said  to  be  in  its  infancy.  Textual 
emendation  based  on  conjecture  is  usually  mistaken,  and  that 
based  on  the  evidence  of  versions  is  in  most  cases  precarious  at 
least;  for  the  massoretic  text  is  likely  to  be  right  even  where  it  is 
contradicted  by  the  other  witnesses,^  and  the  testimony  of  the  latter 

^In  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  the  version  only  seems  to  contradict  the 
Hebrew,  but  does  not  in  reality.  Regardinj^  the  relative  excellence  of  the 
massoretic  text,  the  writer  may  refer  to  his  "Notes  on  the  Aramaic  Part  of 
Daniel"'  (Transactions  of  the  Connecticut  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences, 
Vol.  XV,  1909),  in  which  some  new  evidence  in  support  of  our  traditional 
Hebrew  is  offered. 


xii  Preface 

is  very  easily  misunderstood.  The  writer  is  himself  conscious  of 
many  shortcomings  and  foolish  performances  in  this  field,  and 
does  not  suppose  that  the  text-critical  attempts  made  in  the 
present  volume  are  free  from  blunders.  Great  pains  have  been 
taken,  however,  to  find  out  the  character  and  history,  not  only  of 
the  texts  which  are  being  scrutinized,  but  also  of  those  by  the  aid 
of  which  it  is  proposed  to  emend.  Lack  of  acumen  may  be 
excused ;  the  unpardonable  sin  is  that  of  criticising  without  any 
careful  attention  to  the  materials  of  criticism.  The  way  in  which 
the  best  known  and  oftenest  quoted  of  our  modern  commentators 
and  editors  hack  away  at  a  faultless  Hebrew  text,  on  the  ground 
of  Greek  readings  which  they  have  not  carefully  examined,  found 
in  translations  with  whose  character  they  do  not  concern  them- 
selves and  of  the  nature  and  conditions  of  whose  literary  trans- 
mission they  have  hardly  an  idea,  is  nothing  short  of  appalling. 
And  yet  this  is  what  passes  for  "text-criticism"  at  the  present 
day.  A  good  many  instances  of  the  kind  receive  mention  in  the 
following  pages,  mostly  in  footnotes.  The  influence  of  this  hasty 
and  unscientific  mode  of  procedure  in  dealing  with  the  text  has 
been  working  great  harm  in  all  the  other  branches  of  Old 
Testament  study. 

Most  of  the  chapters  of  this  book  have  already  appeared  in 
print,  but  in  places  where  their  circulation  has  of  necessity  been 
quite  limited.  They  are  not  mere  reprints,  but  in  nearly  every 
case  have  undergone  revision.  In  the  American  Journal  of 
Semitic  Languages,  published  under  the  auspices  of  the  University 
of  Chicago,  appeared  chapters  I  (Oct.,  1906),  II  (Jan.,  1907), 
III  (Apr.,  1907),  V  (Oct.,  1907),  VI  (Apr.,  1908),  VII  (Jan., 
1909  and  Apr.,  1909),  and  VIII  (July,  1909).  Chapter  IV 
appeared  in  Vol.  II  of  the  Studies  in  Memory  of  Wiltiam  Rainey 
Harper,  published  at  the  same  University  early  in  1908.  Chapter 
IX  appears  here  for  the  first  time. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  take  this  opportunity  to  express  my  gratitude 
to  the  members  of  the  Semitic  and  Old  Testament  Faculty  of  the 
University  of  Chicago  and  to  the  Manager  of  the  University 
Press,  for  their  encouragement  and  generous  assistance,  without 
which  the  volume  would  hardly  have  been  written. 

Attention  is  called  to  the  Addenda  and  Corrigenda  at  the  end 
of  the  book. 

Grindelwald,  Switzerland 
September  1, 1909 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface vi 

CHAPTER 

I.     Portions  of  First  Esdras  andNehemiah  in  the  Syro-Hexa- 

PLAR  Version 1 

II.     The  Nature  AND  Origin  of  "First  Esdras"         ....  11 
I.     The  Two  Recensions  of  the  Ezra  History    .       .       .  11 
II.     Past  and  Present  Theories  Regarding  the  "  Apocry- 
phal" Book  12 

III.  The  Nature  of  First  Esdras 18 

IV.  The  Origin  of  Our  Two  Recensions       ....  30 

III.  The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths 37 

I.     Origin  of  the  Story 37 

II.     Translation 50 

III.     The  Interpolator's  Additions 56 

IV.  The  Apparatus  for  the  Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles- 

Ezra-Nehemiah 62 

I.     Nature  of  the  Text-Critical  Problem     ....  63 
II.     Theodotion  the  Author  of  Our  "Canonical"  Greek 

Version  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh 66 

III.  The  Two  Main  Types  of  the  Text         ....  82 

1.  First  Esdras  .........  82 

2.  The  Standard  Text  of  the  Second  Century  a.  d.  87 

IV.  Notes  on  Manuscripts  and  Versions       ....  90 

1.  The    Superiority  of   the  A   Manuscripts    to 

Those  of  the  B  Group 91 

2.  Hexaplar  MSS  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.    ...  96 

3.  The  Versions  Made  from  Origen's  "  Septua- 

gint" 99 

4.  The  Two  Main  Branches  of  the  Greek  Tradi- 

tion        101 

5.  The  Syrian  Tradition,  the  Lucian  Recension 

and  Our  L  Text 105 

V.  The  Critical  Process  in  Restoring  the  Semitic  Text  113 

V.     The  First  Chapter   of   Ezra   in  its   Original   Form   and 

Setting 115 

The  Restored  Hebrew  Text  (the  Chronicler's  Narra- 
tive of  the  Return  from  the  Exile)    ....  120 

Translation 132 

Note  A,  the  "Seventy  Years"  of  Exile         .       .       .  135 

Note  B,  the  Name  Sheshbazzar 136 

Note  C,  the  Number  of  the  Temple- Vessels        .       .  138 
xiii 


xiv  Table  of  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

VI.     The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra 140 

I.     The  Character  of  the  "Official  Documents"  in  Ezra  140 

1.  The  Prevaihng  View 142 

2.  A  Literary  Habit  of  Ancient  Narrators     .       .  145 

3.  The  Tendency  of  the  Documents       .       .       .  150 
II.     The  Chronicler's  Part  in  the  Aramaic  Portions       .  157 

III.  The  Aramaic  of  the  Book  of  Ezra 161 

IV.  Proper  Names  and  Foreign  Words        ....  166 

1.  Proper  Names 166 

2.  The  Foreign  Words          173 

V.  TheHistory  of  the  Text  of  4:6-11 178 

VI.  The  Text  of  the  Passages    .......  183 

Samaritan  Intrigues  Against  the  Building  of 

the  Temple 184 

Ezra's  Credentials 196 

Translation 199 

VII.     The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Independent  Narrator  .  .208 

I.     The  Chronicler's  Main  Purpose 208 

II.     The  Chronicler  as  Editor 213 

1.  In  the  Books  of  Chronicles     .       .       .       .       .  213 

2.  In  Ezra-Nehemiah 223 

III.     The  Chronicler  as  Independent  Narrator    .       .       .  227 

1.  The  Sources,  Real  and  Imaginary,  in  I  and  II 

Chron 227 

2.  The  Chronicler's  Characteristics  as  a  Narrator  231 
5.  The  "Ezra  Memoirs" 238 

4.  The  Chronicler's  Narrative  of  Nehemiah        .  248 

VIII.     The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence 252 

The  Account  of  the  Expedition 265 

The  Reading  of  the  Law 268 

The  Expulsion  of  the  Gentile  Wives      ....  270 
The  Covenant  Against   Gentile  Marriages  and  in 

Support  of  the  Clergy 274 

Note  A,  on  Ezr.  10:44    .^ 278 

Note  B,  on  Neh.  9:4  f 279 

Note  C,  The  Lacuna  in  Neh.  9:5 280 

NoteD,  onNeh.  10:lf 282 

IX.     The  Exile  and  the  Restoration 285 

I.     Prevailing  Misconceptions          ..'...  285 

II.     The  Deportation  to  Babylonia 290 

III.  The  Beginning  of  the  Hebrew  Dispersion  .       .       .  293 

IV.  The  Reviving  of  Jerusalem 297 

V.     The  Renewal  of  the  Worship 301 

1.  Untrustworthy  Narratives 301 

2.  Conditions    at    the    Time    of    Haggai    and 

Zechariah 303 


Table  of  Contents  xv 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

IX.     The  Exile  and  the  Restoration — Continued: 

VI.     General  Summary,  586  to  444  B.C.          .       .       .       .  305 

VII.     The  Religious  Development 307 

VIII.     Jewish  Temples  of  the  Dispersion 315 

IX.     The  High  Priests  of  the  Second  Temple     .       .       .  319 

X.     The  Rivalry  with  the  Samaritans 321 

XI.    The  Date  of  Nehemiah 333 

Chronological  Table 337 

Addenda  and  Corrigenda 339 

Indices 341 


PORTIONS    OF   FIRST    ESDRAS    AND    NEHEMIAH    IN 
THE  SYRO-HEXAPLAR  VERSION 

In  the  years  61G  and  617  A.  d.,  Paul  of  Telia  made  at  Alexan- 
dria his  Syriac  translation  of  the  old  Greek  version  of  the  Old 
Testament.  The  Greek  text  which  he  translated  was  one  of  great 
historical  importance,  namely,  that  which  constituted  the  "Septu- 
agint"  column  in  Origen's  Hexapla.  It  is  quite  possible  that 
the  Hexapla  itself  was  in  existence  at  that  time  (presumably  at 
Caesarea)  ;  but,  however  that  may  be,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  old 
manuscripts  transcribed  directly  from  the  original — and  some  of 
them  doubtless  collated  again  with  it,  to  insure  the  greatest  pos- 
sible accuracy  —  were  to  be  had  in  Alexandria.  One  or  more  of 
these  supposedly  faithful  copies  formed  the  basis  of  PauFs  labors. 
His  rendering  was  a  closely  literal  one,  and  its  characteristics  are 
now  pretty  well  known.'  Every  part  of  the  Greek  is  reproduced 
as  exactly  as  possible,  and  in  such  a  uniform  and  self-consistent 
manner  as  to  render  this  translation  very  easily  recognizable, 
wherever  specimens  of  it  are  found. 

The  history  of  the  manuscript  transmission  of  this  "Syro- 
Hexaplar"  version  is  a  comparatively  brief  one,  as  might  have 
been  expected.  Although  often  copied,  at  least  in  part,  it  was 
not  as  generally  or  as  carefully  preserved  as  the  Peshitto.  A 
number  of  manuscripts  containing  longer  or  shorter  portions  of  it 
are  now  known  to  be  extant.  Of  these,  the  most  important  by 
far  is  the  great  Milan  codex,  published  in  fac-simile  by  Ceriani 
in  1874  {Codex  Syro-Hexaplaris;  published  as  Vol.  VII  of  his 
Monumenta  sacra  et  pi'ofana).  This  contains  the  translation  of 
the  second  half  of  the  Greek  Bible ;  a  twin  codex  containing  the 
first  half,  and  no  doubt  originally  forming  the  first  volume  of  this 
same  manuscript,  was  in  existence  as  late  as  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, when  it  was  in  the  possession  of  Andreas  Du  Maes  (Masius) 
of  Amsterdam.  As  is  well  known,  it  has  since  then  mysteriously 
disappeared.     The  Maes  codex  was  a  torso,  to  be  sure,  lacking 

'  See  the  account  of  this  version  in  Swete's  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament  in  Greek, 
pp.  112-14,  and  the  literature  cited  on  p.  116. 

1 


2  Ezra  Studies 

both  the  beginning  and  the  end;  but  in  its  original  extent  it  com- 
bined with  the  Milan  codex  to  form  a  whole  which  probably 
included  all  of  the  version  of  Paul  of  Telia. 

In  regard  to  one  or  two  of  the  books  included  in  this  transla- 
tion there  are  still  uncertainties  waiting  to  be  cleared  up.  This 
is  especially  true  of  the  Ezra  books,  namely  I  Esdras  (the  "apoc- 
ryphal" Ezra)  and  II  Esdras  (including  both  the  "canonical" 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah).  Just  what  was  the  disposition  of  these 
books  in  Origen's  Hexapla  ?  What  did  Paul's  Syriac  translation 
from  the  "Septuagint"  column  contain  at  this  point?  What 
portion  of  the  Syro-Hexaplar  version  of  these  books  is  still  extant, 
and  what  may  be  learned  from  it  ? 

In  the  Peshitto  version,  the  Ezra  books  are  lacking.  The 
Chronicler's  history  of  Israel,  Chron.-Ezra-Neh.,  did  not  form  a 
part  of  the  old  Syriac  Bible.  The  same  considerations  which  led 
the  Jews  to  append  this  book  to  their  sacred  writings  at  a  very 
late  date,  making  it  follow  even  Daniel  and  Esther,  caused  its 
complete  exclusion  from  the  Edessene  canon.  Syriac  versions  of 
the  Ezra  history  are  therefore  rare. 

First  Esdras  is  extant,  in  more  or  less  complete  form,  in  several 
Syriac  manuscripts,  all  of  which  appear  to  contain  the  translation 
of  Paul  of  Telia.  The  manuscript  which  furnished  the  text  of 
this  book  for  the  London  Polyglot  (see  also  Lagarde,  Lihri  veteris 
testamenti  apocryphi  sijriace,  p.  xxiv)  has  a  title  at  the  beginning 
which  says  that  the  version  of  the  book  is  "that  of  the  Seventy"  : 
_fci.a^>  j^aJ^ialiAiiD  ^\  jJoio  .  j^-pi.?  )-«^rO  \^h^ .  Similar  words 
occur  in  a  subscription  at  the  end  (Lagarde,  ibid,  p.  xxvi) ;  and 
the  same  formula,  again,  begins  and  closes  the  extracts  which  I 
publish  here  for  the  first  time  (see  below).  These  words,  wher- 
ever they  appear  in  a  Syriac  manuscript,  refer  to  the  Hexaplar 
translation.  They  stand  in  the  superscription  of  the  book  of 
Tobit,  in  the  London  Polyglot ;  while  in  the  Ussher  codex  there 
is  a  marginal  note  at  vii,  11  which  says  that  the  book  is  thus  far 
transcribed  "from  a  Septuagint  manuscript":  1'^'"^^^  l^^  ^ 
(Lagarde,  ibid.,  p.  xii).  In  either  case,  whether  in  Tobit  or  in 
I  Esdras,  examination  of  the  character  of  the  version  shows  that 
it  is  indeed  that  of  the  bishop  Paul. 

First  Esdras,  then,  stood  in  Origen's  "LXX"  column.  This 
we  should  suppose,  from  other  evidence,  to  have  been  the  case. 
We  know  not  only  that  the  book  had  a  place  in  his  canon,  but 


First  Esdras  and  Nehemiah  in  the  Syro-Hexaplar      3 

also  that  he — in  agreement  with  the  church  tradition — believed 
it  to  have  the  right  of  priority  over  the  form  adopted  in  the  Jewish 
canon.  And  Origen  was  certainly  not  ignorant  of  the  fact,  so 
widely  ignored  in  modern  times,  that  "I  Esdras"  is  nothing  else 
than  a  very  respectable  translation  of  a  Hebrew- Aramaic  version 
of  the  Ezra  history. 

The  status  of  "Second  Esdras"  in  the  Hcxapla  and  in  Paul's 
translation  cannot  be  demonstrated  absolutely,  with  the  evidence 
now  available,  though  a  tolerable  degree  of  certainty  can  be 
reached.  No  Hexaplar  text  of  the  canonical  Ezra,  whether  Greek 
or  Syriac,  has  been  known;  but  see  now  below.  The  only  such 
text  of  Nehemiah  now  recognized  is  the  one  which  is  published  in 
the  following  pages.  In  the  table  of  contents  of  the  lost  Maes 
manuscript  stood  simply  "Ezra  ;"^  according  to  recognized  usage 
this  might  mean  (1)  the  apocryphal  Ezra,  or  (2)  the  canonical 
Ezra,  or  (3)  both  together,  or  (4)  the  combination  of  one  or  both 
of  them  with  Nehemiah.  It  has  already  been  shown  that  the 
apocryphal  Ezra  (I  Esdras)  stood  in  the  Syro-Hexaplar  transla- 
tion, and  the  text  printed  below  shows  that  Nehemiah  was  also 
included  there.  The  "Ezra"  of  the  Maes  codex  therefore  un- 
doubtedly stood  for  these  two  books,  at  least.  It  is  unfortunate 
that  Maes,  in  making  his  extracts  for  the  Peculium  syrorum  (in 
the  Antwerp  Polyglot)  and  for  the  Amsterdam  edition  of  the 
Critici  sacri,  should  have  left  Chronicles  and  Ezra  untouched, 
although  excerpting  systematically  every  other  book  contained  in 
his  manuscript !' 

It  is  not  to  be  doubted,  finally,  that  the  Syro-Hexaplar  version 
— and  therefore  the  Maes  codex — contained  the  canonical  Ezra, 
as  the  first  part  of  "Second  Esdras."  If  the  Greek  version  of 
our  canonical  book  (and  therefore,  of  course,  of  Chronicles  and 
Nehemiah  as  well)  is  that  of  Theodotion,  as  there  are  good 
grounds  for  believing,*  and  as  not  a  few  eminent  scholars,  from 
Grotius  (1644.)  onward,  have  contended,  it  nevertheless  certainly 
was  not  apportioned  to  him,  nor  even  in  any  way  designated  as 
his,  in  Origen's  work.     No  one  can  seriously  doubt,  in  view  of  all 

2  See  Rahlfs,  in  Lagarde's  Bibliothecae  syriacae  quae  ad  philologiam  sacr am  pertinent, 
pp.  .S2^  sq. 

SRablfs,  ibid.,  pp.  19  sq. 

*I  shall  discuss  this  question  in  a  subsequent  chapter.  See  the  very  interesting  and 
acute  observations  of  Sir  Henry  Howorth,  printed  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  of 
Biblical  Archaeology,  May  and  November,  1901 ;  June  and  November,  1902 ;  and  his  collection 
of  the  external  evidence. 


4  Ezra  Studies 

the  evidence,  that  the  "apocryphal"  Ezra  was  followed  immedi- 
ately by  the  "canonical"  Ezra  in  the  fifth  column  of  the  Hexapla; 
and  that,  too,  without  any  note  or  comment,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  one  is  so  nearly  a  replica  of  the  other.  Very  likely 
Origen  did  not  know  that  the  translation  was  that  of  Theodotion; 
as  I  hope  to  show  elsewhere,  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that 
the  old  translation  of  the  Chronicler's  work  (with  the  exception 
of  the  single  fragment  which  had  already  come  to  be  known  as 
I  Esdras)  had  perished  long  before  his  time.  But,  be  that  as  it 
may,  it  is  almost  certain  that,  if  he  had  ever  expressed  an  opinion 
as  to  the  origin  of  this  version,  the  fact  would  have  been  known 
to  us.  It  is  not  easy  to  believe,  moreover,  that  he  could  have 
failed  to  express  the  opinion  if  he  had  held  it. 

The  Syriac  manuscript  in  the  British  Museum  numbered  Add. 
12,168  has  been  known  for  some  time  past  to  contain  a  catena  of 
extracts  from  this  same  lost  portion  of  the  Syro-Hexaplar  version,^ 
namely  parts  of  Chronicles,  I  Esdras,  and  Nehemiah,  the  selections 
following  one  another  in  order,  and  amounting  to  a  considerable 
part  of  the  whole.  The  canonical  Ezra  is  not  represented;  un- 
doubtedly because  it  contained  nothing  not  already  found  in 
I  Esdras,  not  beca,use  it  was  wanting  in  the  manuscript  from 
which  the  selections  were  made. 

The  Ezra-Nehemiah  excerpts  begin  on  fol.  616,  with  the  super- 
scription in  red:  Tr*^:"^:^?  j^oi%n\4SP  ^\  :  l?}^.?  1-^^=  J^^^  v^  • 
The  first  selection  is  I  Esdr.  ii,  1  sq.;  i.  c,  the  beginning  of  the 
book  of  Ezra  proper.     The  contents  in  detail : 

I  Esdr.     ii,  1-14.  The  edict  of  Gyms,  and  its  consequences. 

15.  Beginning  of  the  account  of  the  correspondence  in  the 
time  of  Artaxerxes. 
20-25.  Conclusion  of  this  account. 
iv,  35&-36,  38-40.  The  praise  of  Truth,  from  the  story  of  the 
Three  Young  Men. 
49-57.  The  edict  of  Darius; 
V,  46-70.  Building  of  the  altar;    foundation  of  the  temple; 

building  hindered  by  the  enemies  of  the  Jews, 
vi,  1-2.  Renewal  of  the  biiilding  in  the  time  of  Darius  II. 
vii,  6-15.  Dedication  of  the  temple,  and  celebration  of  the  Pass- 
over, 
viii,  1-26.  The  scribe  Ezra,  and  his  commission  from  Artaxerxes. 
65-69.  Ezra  hears  of   the  mixed  marriages,  and  mourns 
accordingly. 

'"  The  fact  seems  to  have  been  first  pointed  out  by  Dr.  Gwynn ;  see  Howorth,  loc.  cit. 


First  Esdras  and  Nehemiah  in  the  Syro-Hexaplar       5 

I  Esdr.  viii,  88-92.  Confession  and  repentance  of  the  people,  and  the 
oath  administered  by  Ezra. 
ix,  1-10.  The  proclamation  and  the  assembly. 

466-47.  Ezra  blesses  God,  and  the  people  respond  (from 
the  account  of  the  reading  of  the  Law  =  Neh.  viii,  6). 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  table  of  contents  that  the  "First  Book 
of  Ezra"  here  excerpted  is  identical,  in  arrangement  and  extent, 
with  our  First  Esdras. 

Then  follow  the  extracts  from  the  "Second  Book  of  Ezra," 
all  of  which  are  taken  from  the  book  of  Nehemiah.     These  are : 

Neh.  i,  1-4 a.  Nehemiah  hears  of  the  distress  of  Jerusalem, 

ii,  1-8.  He  is  sent  thither  by  Artaxerxes. 
iv,  1-3.  Sanballat  and  his  allies  conspire  to  attack  Jerusalem. 

10-16.  The  builders  of  the  wall  prepared  for  battle, 
vi,  15-16.  The  completion  of  the  wall, 
vii,  736 — viii,  18.  The  reading  of  the  Law. 
ix,  1-3.  Confession  of  the  people. 

This  Esdras-Neh.  catena  I  copied  entire  in  the  year  1898. 
I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  print  here  the  whole  text  of 
the  I  Esdras  selections,  however,  since  it  differs  but  slightly  from 
that  already  published,  which  is  accessible  in  convenient  form. 
I  have  accordingly  collated  it  with  the  Lagarde  text,  and  give  the 
variant  readings,  as  follows  : 

I  Esdr.  ii,  2  ^j]  >a-^l  3  ^^^i?  5  ^^j^,] +]^l:-.1  0  ^aJoio] 
cm.  o  I  |:^|jaco  7  ]?ocn-?  |  ^aJ^i?  I  j-kj-loli.]  Uj^?  8  lU..^  2"]  lUvJi'? 
10  )_ju.l,-»^£^Ai>al>     11  jjaiOiflli^A^  +  a  marginal  note  (original  hand) 

^1  -  ^  *-  j^        12    JA  .V.nl^    I    |mV.Q^]    jVV.»=i        13    .  oai2i^  ]  +  t;-^?    I    J— ^«n?» 

osjaJZ]?  I^jjsjo  I  .5_*iw*.o  14  ViLS  15  om.  ^5  1°  I  L  ^  ^  u  jt]^  I 
^V  *^<^|  '^^  I  .  w^|i)vnw^  a&aL£Z)4u^^£o  aso^jZ^o  ago)  tN^.^o  ^Jos^^-t.f^iLjJI^o 
20  ]>ai>  ]9a-*,?o  I  w£)oZ  }]  I  j^i^oso  21  aeaiooZ]yl^  (sic)  \  ^aicQ4l.).iil.o 
.  w^H|<^foV,^  I  {.a^Jaaso  23  v.^V*..;^|  ">  |  )_a^a.ali.o  25  a  ■«■  ■>  -/<]  |  >ooZ]S 
jccjjjjaaico  I  ^V  *^-4^ji  I  >3li»A?ol^?  iv,  356  ^A  V  -  -■  i-»£w»o  36  )*ViA,o 
dittogr.  I  om.  j_3ai,  38  ]y^  \  >cu-d]  ja^i:^  |  >alAl»]  +  .^o  {Kal  ^rj) 
40  |]o]  |]o  aOi-.?  U-»r=  M  y®  (fts  conjectured  in  Lagarde,  p.  xxv)  | 
om.  ail^f^  49  wC£^o]  wSl^  i-i\Sr  w*»a_»^?  |  )_-.?oai — ^  |  j— a?)  °-i  ^o 
50   ^r— 1?  1  U'i^^J  +  ^31   !  U?o^?      51   ^^L^      52   iJroas]  + 

■^m\h^^.  53  ViLs  54  zaiTL-kl^o  55  z3_ii_-.it-»  I  >3_l*_4.?o]o  56 
liwiJaiasjo  57  V_ii_s  I  >-v^H^  V,  46  '\_»lj_jca_*]»  47  oij-js]  o<ti 
I  '\.£^hc]o  I  "V^liJ:;-*.?        49    ^oail^]   ^oai-.:^       50   ]]    N    ^    V^    ^nS«,nn> 


6  Ezra  Studies 

52  o?^>     53  }-o?-^a     54  >a^^9o|]  I  Vas^o-)  |  V^li^U*.?  |  y^  \^?o]? 

55    oLJSt>^o  I  >a^i^io}]o       56    ^Sn.  njo  [  V_*^*io?|o  |  '^i    «    \]?       57    \i'^^ 

59  oilkso  60  ood  ©>-»?  I  poi  2°]  )jcn,  65  Vasjo}!*  66  om.  oi^  ] 
^AniL4,|>  +  marg.  note  (original  hand)  Sa^k-o^}]  67  ^]o  |  Vas^oi 
68  ^^l^jii^l  ^  V  -«]  V-Iiju.)?  I  M'^'ni  vi,  1  ,»£jz|]  ^?  jio-.^ 
..oi/j  ._A,Q^i»  (TiZa-iuiJaD?  jA  >•>  >*^  (as  conjectured  in  Lagarde,  p.  xxv) 
I  o1_i*>  J  o,^?  I  |_k?oai_k  I  >n\A,;o).so  2  '^^kjiwlii^i  ooi  "^-sasiol  |  >-i\A/?o).a; 
I  ^?,:^o  vii,  6  u'^  \  £-Va^  8  >^  N  »  Ur^^  9  U:i-^oJ  + 
:}mjai]  ^^iq^^S^  jJ  |  £w*j.aaJ  10  ^^^^  tn  .j;  15  ^o3i-.j-k|3  viii,  2 
U»lie]»]  l-^i^so]?  I  ^.-»-.^]?  3  Vaa  5  >ali^iojl  6  ,NViSn  |  Z>  4  >  ..  ^^]  | 
)-i\SnN   I  ^.aaJ  |  Vas   |  V-ais]  +  •  U^r*    )    ..j     .?    ).1V-'1-   |  >al-4,^oJ] 

7  ■  ^^^^^v  (marg.  note,  |?^)  |  Iz:^^,-^  8  a  ^  ^  .-  ?^]  |  om^  10  j-^jooi-.? 
I  >a^^ioq  11  ,-.^^1  V^ai  Vi5  12  >aV^H  I  i^nVilN  13  >a^-i.?oq 
I  \ — a_S)  I  >aii>^?oVs  I  >ali>dk.?o)^?  14  j^cnpo  15  >-i  \  a>?o)— a;  17 
>i\a.^o)j>       18    ^^\qb    oai    J?       19    )ja^as?o   |   ).   Vij    ^ina       22    j1<^^.o]] 

marg.  note,  jj^a-?  Uoiio^^zi^  23  ^>^;  ^  v  i  ^,]  -  ^^  -«  24 
^o^iiij]  ^©i-iiiJ?  I  Uca:i^oZ£.i>aa]    marg.  note,    ^iinisj]      25  j—i^jo  | 

>al:^5o)^?  65  ^^..NViIuA.]  66  ^^-^  I  jVnSnS?  |  jZo^iLjui!.  |  U=]aic?o] 
)-»Vaio]>o  I  l-kV^?©]  +  i-kiiOo?l»o  67  .qJctio  |  w^iii^Zlo  68  ,*^?  }-»-*'? 
.»1^)  )^J=??o]  -»^?  U-o?o  U^h  88  >als^So1  I  Uni^]  l-*Jj  |  j-j^a^  89 
V_-.Uk?  I  |jUl^  ^^-»Jr-l]  iiiarg.  note,  j^^aj  |  ] v'^v^v  90  ^.rn.o>Av^. 
91  ^  1°]  y_so  92  .O-i-^-jIi.  I  oi^o  iX,  3  :^aV^ioV£o  |  >a:i-».>olJ 
5  >cui>^)oj3  I  l—i-k?  6  ]Zu.oi^  1  >c)-c»  ]oLsi  7  V^jJH*}]  10  ll^QJfl  0051]  oai 
I  l^i]  jjs?     46  lip.]  marg.  note  adds  Zo|^^  jai^^}]     47  ^lo:^]  jUojo 

The  extracts  from  Nehemiah  begin  on  fol.  656.  I  print  them 
entire,  as  the  first  published  specimen  of  a  Hexaplar  text  of  this 
book.  That  we  have  here  the  version  of  the  bishop  Paul,  any 
student  of  that  version  will  see  at  a  glance.  The  idioms  and 
verbal  order  of  the  Greek  are  retained,**  compound  words  are 
resolved  in  the  familiar  way,  the  Greek  definite  article  is  replaced 
by  the  Syriac  demonstrative  pronoun,  and  so  on.  There  are  no 
diacritical  marks,  and  very  likely  there  were  none  in  the  manu- 
script from  which  this  one  is  an  excerpt.  These  signs  were 
included  in  the  original  translation  of  Paul  of  Telia,  to  be  sure; 
but  copyists  were  prone  to  omit  them,  as  we  know  from  the  his- 
tory of  the  Greek  Hexaplar  codices.     The  character  of  the  text 

6 This  was  an  extremely  easy  matter,  to  be  sure,  inasmuch  as  the  idioms  and  order  in 
the  Greek  Nehemiah  are  generally  not  Greek  at  all,  but  Semitic. 


First  Esdras  and  Nehemiah  in  the  Syro-Hexaplar      7 

is  thus  conflate,  including  both  the  Greek  version  selected  by 
Origen  and  also  the  plus  of  the  Hebrew.  See  further  below, 
chap,  iv,  where  some  traces  of  the  work  of  Aquila  and  Symma- 
chus  in  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  are  also  noticed. 

The  orthography  and  punctuation  are,  of  course,  those  of  the 
manuscript  itself.  The  words  and  passages  here  overlined  are 
written  in  red  ink  in  the  original.  Notice  the  marks  over  the 
two  words  jous]?  -V'« ,  in  Neh.  ii,  3,  indicating  that  they  have 
been  accidentally  transposed.'  At  the  end,  after  ix,  3,  is  the  sub- 
scription:  "Here  end  the  extracts  from  the  Ezra  of  the  Seventy." 

From  the  Hexaplar  Nehemiah 
(MS.  Brit  Mus.  Add.  12,168) 

.  Ziukoai  ^:-*l  )j]o  .  ^tymS?  Izo^*^  [marg.  note,  ,aJ-=]  a_X_a2_s]  |  i.^*^ 
.]903i-»9  lr^^°  °'^  :  «\*?  ]-f]  ^^  !-•»  ).*1  \  M  ^Za^  l-^jo^  .  ]Z^_*.s  )  A>n  ^n 
,__:so  oo(n  asL^L^A,]^  .aJoi  :  a£lo£u4.]»  .aJai  j-k?oai_*  \ — Ju-lso  ^oJJ  h  \]  a-o 
OM^L^]^  K^t\t]  a^i-^?  vfJ''?  •  ^■^ali>  ojJsojo^  .  >-i\a.?o]  ''^^^^Csoo  .  ]£^«nA> 
.  limM^o  ]i^9  ]z-'  4  .n^  [marg.,  |^1  *|Vi^]  .  ]?z)^  .oJ]  t;^-^  •  ]^«nA.  ^ 
£^NViA>   ,^?   loaio  *  .  0  0    .  l?als   OpOJ   ai.!;i>*5   ^i^VZo   .  —^j-kias   >-i\4.So]?   j'^^'i^o 


,-£LkJ    ]^f~t~s    jo9io'    .  cnl;^)    .  ]^U^a.^    ZC^^IZJo    .  £>  «n^o    L^L^    .  ■    «\gi    |ISn\      II 
Z:u_*o(7i    ^£u»]o   0  0    .  v*naLC|-o    jJi"^]    ]o3i    t^]   {Jo    .  |  '^V^/^V    L^tn-^o    jj^-'^ 
^*^    ^J;;:^^70    .  ).£i!:;^9    ]Zi  4  »"<    ^    )]]    .  ])si    ai-k2^]    \i   [mnrg.,  joi^i^]    .  |  nnViV) 

)^7Zo  .  ^^j.^  I^Ti-s]?  >a1^^?  I'f^^?  I^^'-^  ]i^i  *|Vi?  ^?i  "^o.jl:^  .  .*^9  i-^^At-^ 

)    S    -    :>_J]    qX*    'M^    .Ui:ii>fi    ,»!.    i^lo*   0OO0  .l^aJLc    a:i^Ul    (kl^» 
V_L.  ^     i-'-^'^'^   Zj^solo^  j-LiQ^>-o(ji  ]auJ:i>.l  (fol.  66a)  Zo^i*  ^=^-^^0  -M 

7  The  same  sign,  apparently  not  heretofore  understood,  in  Josh.  Stj/l,,  ed.  VV'right,  41,  10, 
note;  where  it  appears  that  the  corruption  of  the  text  had  its  origin  in  an  accidental  trans- 
position. 

8  Evidently  a  mistake  for  <^Za^  . 


8  Ezra  Studies 

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.  >n\A>?o).a  ]^-f£>  bfSn^ia^o  |Z).La^  :  ]f~M^]  .ooil^  a-*J^Z]o  ^  .  ^^^  .otn^ 
IZj^Litf  ^1  Sn .  pjo  .,;^?  loT-J^I  Za^  ^T^N^o^  .  IZuJ-.}^!;^  IJ  ai,_ai.la^o 
j^a^  v£  jooio '"  aiXii)  .  .ocnl:^)  ^°Ar^  ''sT^  '  i  *'n\'^o  |vnV/^.j  ^  ^^  .  Vv 
.ofliJ;:^)  ^~^^^^°  •  )|  ^'^'^  °°^  '^r'^^  [ll^^rg.,  Il-k'l]  l^sllaj?  .ocTuJii,^  .  oin 
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)  n  ni  1  .  >a:i  ,  m\i  .  )Vi\\  Zjic]  oai  jj-s-j^o  ^''  .  ©  ©  .  ).iiscL=?  jjxaioik 
)«\\  ^  loaUo  .  >ali^9o|  (fol.  66b)  iu^^j:^!^}   oZqjs   .  aiX*?  [marg.,  U^] 


First  Esdras  and  Nehemiah  in  the  Syro-Hexaplar       9 

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10  Ezra  Studies 

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II 

THE  NATURE  AND  ORIGIN  OF  "FIRST  ESDRAS" 

I.     THE    TWO    RECENSIONS    OF    THE    EZRA    HISTORY 

In  the  case  of  several  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  the 
Greek  Bible  gives  us  a  text  which  differs  widely  from  the  tradi- 
tional Hebrew  or  Aramaic.  In  Jeremiah  there  has  been  an  exten- 
sive transposition  of  chapters,  so  that  in  the  second  half  of  the 
book  the  order  in  the  Hebrew  is  altogether  unlike  that  in  the 
Greek.  Which,  if  either,  of  the  two  represents  the  original 
order  is  still  a  matter  of  controversy.  In  Esther  the  Greek  con- 
tains a  number  of  rather  long  passages  which  are  wanting  in  our 
Hebrew  and  are  probably  secondary,  even  if  possibly  translated 
from  a  Hebrew  original.  Moreover,  the  history  of  the  tradition 
of  the  text  is  often  a  very  complicated  one.  In  several  cases  the 
Greek  exists  in  two  or  more  rival  versions  or  recensions,  as  in  the 
Books  of  Tobit  and  Judith.  In  the  case  of  Daniel  we  have  three 
different  traditions.  The  oldest  Greek  version  departs  widely  from 
our  Hebrew-Aramaic  text,  not  only  in  adding  or  subtracting  brief 
passages  here  and  there,  but  also  in  including  the  separate  stories 
of  Susanna  and  Bel  and  the  Dragon.  The  later  Greek  Bible 
effected  a  sort  of  compromise  by  adopting  Theodotion's  transla- 
tion of  our  massoretic  Hebrew  and  yet  retaining  the  added  stories. 
■  Now  in  the  latter  part  of  the  Chronicler's  history  of  Israel,  in 
the  section  dealing  with  the  return  from  the  exile,  the  rebuilding 
of  the  temple,  and  the  work  of  Ezra,  almost  exactly  the  same  thing 
has  happened  as  in  the  case  of  Daniel.  The  old  Greek  translation, 
with  its  transpositions,  its  one  long  interpolation,  and  its  other 
minor  peculiarities,  was  in  strong  disagreement  with  the  Hebrew 
text  which  was  preferred  in  Palestine  in  the  second  century  A.  D., 
and  which  soon  came  to  hold  the  field  as  the  only  authoritative 
form  of  the  narrative.  Accordingly,  a  later  translation,  based  on 
this  massoretic  Hebrew,  was  put  into  circulation  in  place  of  the 
older  version,  and  soon  supplanted  it  in  every  region  where  the 
Greek  Bible  was  in  use.  There  seems  to  be  good  reason  to  believe 
that  this  later  translation  was  the  work  of  Theodotion,  whose 
version  thus,  in  the  case  of  the  book  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah, 

11 


12  Ezra  Studies 

occupies  a  place  in  oiir  modern  Greek  Old  Testament  precisely 
similar  to  that  which  it  occupies  in  the  case  of  Daniel.  The  dis- 
cussion of  this  question  will  be  reserved  for  another  place.  At 
all  events,  the  old  version  was  so  effectually  superseded  that  it 
very  narrowly  missed  being  lost  altogether;  in  this  fact,  again, 
furnishing  a  close  parallel  to  the  history  of  the  Daniel  text. 

There  is  to  be  noticed,  at  the  outset,  one  important  point  in 
which  the  case  of  the  rival  recensions  of  the  Ezra  story  differs 
from  the  other  cases  with  which  it  has  just  been  compared.  In 
Jeremiah  the  transpositions,  though  extensive,  were  compara- 
tively harmless.  They  brought  about  no  serious  contradiction  or 
improbability.  In  Daniel  and  Esther  the  additions,  though 
extensive,  were  not  such  as  to  interfere  in  the  least  with  tlie  prin- 
cipal narrative.  They  were  simply  joined  on  externally,  and  exer- 
cised no  influence  on  their  surroundings.  But  the  two  recensions 
of  the  narrative  dealing  with  the  restoration  of  the  Jews  and  the 
work  of  Ezra  could  not  stand  thus  peaceably  side  by  side,  for  the 
one  gives  the  lie  to  the  other.  As  for  the  transpositions,  they 
are  effected  in  the  middle  of  a  connected  history,  with  dates, 
successive  kings,  and  a  necessary  order  of  events.  It  makes 
comparatively  little  difference  whether  Jer.  31  comes  before 
or  after  Jer.  41,  or  even  whether  in  I  Kings,  chap.  20  pre- 
cedes or  follows  chap.  21;  but  it  makes  all  the  difference  in  the 
world  whether  the  train  of  exiles  described  in  Ezra,  chap.  2, 
received  permission  to  return  from  Cyrus  or  from  Darius.  And 
as  for  the  one  addition,  the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths,  the  pro- 
verbial bull  in  the  china  shop  could  not  do  more  thorough  and 
more  vociferous  damage.  Every  adjacent  portion  of  the  history 
is  either  stood  on  its  head  or  else  reduced  to  fragments. 

Yet  the  tradition  of  the  Greek  church,  with  one  voice,  names 
this  troublesome  fragment  ''First  Esdras,"  while  the  version 
which  faithfully  renders  our  massoretic  text  is  only  given  second 
pl&ce.  Josephus,  as  is  well  known,  believed  its  version  of  the 
post-exilic  history  to  be  the  correct  one,  and  so,  doubtless,  did 
the  most  of  his  contemporaries,  even  in  orthodox  Jewish  circles. 

ii.     past  and  present  theories  regarding  the 

"apocryphal"  book 

"First  Esdras,"  or  "Third  Ezra,"  or  "The  Apocryphal  Ezra," 

or  "The  Greek  Ezra,"  as  it  has  been  variously  called,  has  had  an 

interesting  history.     There  is  probably  no  one  of  all  The  Old 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras  13 

Testament  writings  which  has  been  so  inadequately  studied,  and 
which  is  so  seriously  misunderstood  among  Old  Testament  schol- 
ars at  present.  8t.  Jerome  put  the  tremendous  weight  of  his 
authority  against  it  (in  his  Preface  to  Ezra  and  Nehemiah :  Nee 
quemquam  moveat  quod  iinus  a  iiohis  liber  editns  est,  nee  apo- 
cryphorum  tertii  et  quarti  somniis  delectetur;  quia  et  apud  He- 
braeos  Esdrae  Nehemiaeque  sermones  in  unum  volumen  coarc- 
taufur,  et  quae  non  habentur  apud  illos,  nee  de  rirjinti  quatuor 
senibus  sunt,  proeul  abjicienda),  and  his  word  was  law,  as  usual, 
for  the  Latin  church  from  the  Middle  Ages  onward,  and  exercised 
a  profound  influence  over  the  whole  western  world.  The  book 
was  excluded  from  the  Complutensian  Polyglot  (1514-17),  and 
was  not  even  admitted  by  the  Council  of  Trent  (1540) ;'  in  printed 
editions  of  the  Vulgate  it  is  given  place  in  an  appendix  at  the  end 
of  the  Bible,  after  the  New  Testament.  By  modern  scholars  gen- 
erally this  "apocryphal  book"  is  not  regarded  as  a  survival  from 
the  old  Greek  version  of  this  portion  of  the  Old  Testament,  nor 
even  as  the  part  of  a  recension  which  once  included  all  of  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  believed  to  be  a  later 
free  compilation  made  with  a  "tendency."  That  is,  just 
as  the  Chronicler,  in  his  day,  edited  and  expanded  certain  parts 
of  the  history  of  Israel  into  a  book  which  should  inculcate  his  own 
views,  so  (according  to  the  generally  accepted  theory)  a  later  and 
unknown  writer  selected  that  part  of  the  history  which  "began" 
with  Josiah's  passover  (as  though  this  were  a  natural  beginning!) 
and  ended  with  the  career  of  Ezra,  and  rewrote  it,  with  certain 
significant  changes  and  additions,  according  to  his  own  purpose. 
This  view  is  altogether  mistaken,  but  it  is  the  only  one  which 
has  any  recognition  at  the  present  time.  All  of  the  modern  text- 
books of  Introduction,  commentaries,  and  encyclopaedia  articles, 
whether  English,  German,  or  French,  speak  of  the  "author"  of 
First  Esdras,  and  of  his  probable  "purpose"  in  making  this  com- 

1  It  is  singular  that  the  belief  should  have  had  such  wide  currency,  at  this  time,  that 
First  Esdras  did  not  exist  in  Greek.  Thus  Lupton.  in  his  Introduction  to  First  Ksdras 
(Speaker's  Commentary),  p.  5,  quotes  the  remark  prefixed  to  the  Latin  version  of  the  book 
in  the  noted  Latin  Bible  edited  and  published  by  Stophanus  at  Paris  in  1557:  '' Hujus  Ubri 
ne  Graecum  quidem  codicem,  nedum  Hcbraeum  ncmini  (quod  »ciam)  videre  contigit."  The 
form  of  the  quotation  which  I  give  is  that  of  the  original,  of  which  I  have  a  copy.  Lnpton 
is  mistaken,  however,  in  supposing  that  this  note  is  to  bo  attributed  to  the  scholar  Vatablus 
(whose  name  is  used  in  an  unwarranted  way  by  the  editor  of  this  Bible) ;  nor  can  it  have 
come  from  (Uaudius  Radwell,  who  did  indeed  prepare  the  translation  of  the  Apocrypha  for 
this  Hible  (see  LeLong-Masch,  Bibl.  Sacra,  II,  p.  4S0),  but  only  of  the  books  which  stood  in 
the  Complutensian  Polyglot.  The  remark  is  to  be  attributed  to  Stophanus  himself  or  to 
one  of  his  unnamed  heloers. 


14  Ezra  Studies 

pilation.  The  question  is  even  seriously  discussed  whether  this 
"author"  (1)  made  up  his  book  from  our  canonical  Greek  ver- 
sion of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah;  or  (2)  made  use  of  an  inde- 
pendent Greek  version ;  or  (3)  made  his  own  translation  from  the 
Hebrew-Aramaic  original.  That  he  made  his  "compilation"  in 
Greek  is  taken  for  granted,  since  it  is  the  general  belief  that  the 
interpolated  Story  of  the  Three  Youths,  as  we  have  it,  is  not  a 
translation  from  a  Semitic  original.  It  is  a  fact  that  speaks 
volumes  for  the  general  neglect  of  the  book,  that  Schtlrer  in  both 
the  first  and  second  editions  of  his  Geschichte  maintained  the 
view  that  First  Esdras  was  compiled  from  our  canonical  Greek 
Old  Testament — though  any  well-equipped  university  student 
could  demonstrate  the  contrary  to  a  certainty  by  an  afternoon's 
work  on  any  chapter  in  the  book. 

To  illustrate  a  little  further  the  current  view,  and  the  treatment 
now  given  to  this  "apocryphon"  by  Old  Testament  scholars: 
The  DeWette-Schrader  ^mZeV/Mwr/  (8th  ed.,  1869,  p.  565)  bravely 
confessed  inability  to  recognize  the  purpose  of  the  "author"  of 
First  Esdras  in  compiling  it,  remarking:  "Ein  Zweck  dieser 
characterlosen  Compilation  lasst  sich  nicht  entdecken;"  but  the 
great  majority  are  content  to  repeat  over,  each  from  his  fellow, 
Bertholdt's  naive  hypothesis  that  the  writer  intended  to  provide 
a  history  of  the  temple  from  the  latter  part  of  the  regal  period 
down  to  the  time  when  the  cultus  had  been  restored.  Kosters, 
in  his  Wiederherstellung  Is7'aels  in  der  persischen  Periode 
(German  trans,  by  Basedow,  pp.  124-26),  unfolded  a  much  more 
elaborate  theory — with  even  less  support  from  the  document 
itself.  Of  course,  the  abrupt  ending  of  the  "book"  (in  the  middle 
of  a  sentence!)  has  been  generally  noticed,  though  few  have 
made  any  attempt  to  explain  it.  Ewald's  conjecture,  that  the 
work  was  left  unfinished  by  "its  author,"  is  frequently  repeated, 
e.  g.,  by  Strack,  Einleitung*,  p.  152  ("Das  Buch,  welches  von 
seinem  Verfasser  nicht  vollendet  worden  zu  sein  scheint,"  etc.), 
and  by  Guthe,  in  Kautzsch's  Apoliryphen  des  A.  T.,  p.  2.  In 
most  textbooks  of  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament  First  Esdras 
is  ignored — as  though  it  stood  in  no  close  relation  to  the  Old 
Testament ! — and  this,  too,  even  by  those  who  profess  to  believe 
that  it  represents  a  Hebrew-Aramaic  text  differing  in  many 
respects  from  our  massoretic  recension.  In  Cornill's  E inleiiinuf , 
for  example,  it  receives  not  a  syllable  of  mention.     In  Driver's 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras  15 

Infroducfion  it  is  given  a  brief  note  at  the  end  of  the  chapter  on 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  By  commentators  the  two  "books,"  Ezra 
and  First  Esdras,  are  usually  kept  entirely  separate.  If  the  com- 
mentaries on  Chronicles  and  on  Ezra-Nehemiah  mention  First 
Esdras  at  all,  it  is  only  as  a  cxriosniii.  Bertholet,  in  his  com- 
mentary on  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  (in  Marti's  Kurzer  Hand-Com- 
mentar),  does,  indeed,  devote  a  section  to  the  Greek  Ezra  in  his 
introduction,  p|).  xvi,  xvii,  but  his  statements  regarding  it  are 
notably  confused  and  ill-digested,  while  in  the  commentary  itself 
he  makes  no  serious  attempt  to  use  it.  In  general,  his  attitude 
toward  the  apocryphon  is  characteristic  of  a  certain  irresponsible 
method  of  dealing  with  sources  which  is  far  too  prevalent  in  modern 
Old  Testament  criticism:  any  comparison  of  the  Greek  Esdras 
text,  in  occasional  difficult  passages,  is  a  work  of  supererogation, 
of  which  the  commentator  may  boast;  the  idea  that  he  is  in  duty 
bound  to  consult  it  all  the  time,  and  to  make  a  really  critical  study 
of  it  does  not  suggest  itself. 

The  commentaries  on  First  Esdras,  again,  have  not  brought  us 
far  toward  an  understanding  of  its  origin  and  true  character;  as 
might  be  expected  from  the  fact  that  all  the  commentators  have 
believed  the  book  to  be  simply  a  late  and  "historically  worthless" 
compilation.  The  parallel  portions  of  the  canonical  books  are  only 
occasionally  consulted,  and  then  in  the  most  perfunctory  way.  In 
the  Kurzgefasstes  exegetisches  Handbuch  zu  den  Apokryphen 
des  A.  T.,  by  Fritzsche-Grimm  —  the  one  thoroughgoing  and 
scholarly  commentary  on  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha,  but  now 
long  outgrown — the  treatment  of  First  Esdras  (by  Fritzsche)  is 
below  the  level  of  the  rest ;  chiefly,  no  doubt,  for  the  reason  already 
given.  No  commentary  on  the  book  that  has  appeared  since  that 
date  (1851)  is  worthy  of  serious  attention.  Lupton,  in  Wace's 
Speaker'' s  Commentary  (1888),  is  very  superficial;  and  both  he 
and  Zockler  (1891)  are  equal  to  the  feat  of  subjecting  the  book 
to  a  fresh  study  without  even  finding  out  that  it  offers  us  a  sepa- 
rate, extra-canonical  translation  from  the  Semitic!  In  the  critical 
examination  of  text  and  versions  next  to  nothing  has  been  done, 
though  this  is  a  most  promising  field  for  investigation.  The  state- 
ments as  to  these  things  which  now  and  then  appear  are  for  the 
most  part  either  false  or  inaccurate.  Fritzsche  {Comm.,  p.  9) 
asserted  that  the  best  text  of  First  Esdras  is  to  be  found  in  the 
uncial  B  and  the  cursives  52  and  55,  and  this  most  misleading 


16  Ezra  Studies 

statement  lias  been  industriously  copied  by  his  successors,  no  one 
taking  the  trouble  to  test  the  matter.  In  the  second  edition  of 
Cornill's  Einleiiung,  p.  268,  one  could  even  read  that  Jerome(!) 
was  the  author  of  the  Vulgate  version  of  our  apocryphon.  Nestle 
{Margiymlien  und  Materialien,  p.  29,  n.  2)  says  that  "the  Lucian 
recension"  (meaning  the  text  printed  in  Lagarde's  Lihrorum  vet. 
test  canofiicoi'um  pars  ^wior  cjraece)  furnished  the  basis  of  the 
Syriac  translation;  a  theory  which  would  seem  plausible  for  the 
first  nine  verses  of  the  first  chapter,  but  from  that  point  on  is  seen 
to  be  absolutely  false.  There  has  not  even  been  made  a  careful 
comparison  of  the  two  Greek  versions,  the  canonical  and 
the  apocryphal,  as  they  stand  in  our  printed  Grreek  Bibles,  to 
say  nothing  of  inquiries  as  to  their  nature,  history,  and  mutual 
relations.  Even  for  the  restoration  of  the  massoretic  Hebrew  text 
of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah,  no  critical  use  of  even  the  current 
Greek  text  of  First  Esdras  has  ever  been  made.  A  few  (most 
recently  Guthe,  in  the  Polychrome  Bible)  have  included  "The 
Greek  Ezra"  in  their  apparatus  in  a  more  or  less  haphazard  and 
superficial  way,  but  such  attempts  as  these  can  have  no  consider- 
able value. 

The  one  scholar  who  in  recent  times  has  defended  the  view 
that  First  Esdras  represents  a  Greek  translation  which  is  older 
than  the  one  contained  in  the  corresponding  books  of  our  canoni- 
cal Greek  Bible  is  Sir  Henry  Howorth,  who  has  argued  the  case 
more  than  once,^  with  much  learning  and  acumen.  This  view  had 
been  held,  in  one  form  or  another,  by  not  a  few  scholars  ;  among 
them  Grotius,  in  his  annotations,  1644  ;  Whiston,  Essay  toivards 
Restoring  the  True  Text  of  the  Old  Testament,  1722  ;  Pohlmann, 
"Ueber  das  Ansehen  des  apokr.  iii.  Buchs  Esras,"  Tubing,  theol. 
Quartalschrift,  1859,  pp.  257-75;  Ewald,  Gesch.  des  Volkes 
Israel,  IV,  1864,  p.  166  ;  and  Lagarde,  Psalterium  Hieronymi, 
1874,  p.  162,  note.  No  one  of  these  scholars,  however,  set  forth 
the  view  so  fully  and  vigorously  as  Howorth,  nor  do  they  seem  to 
have  appreciated,  as  he  has,  the  great  importance  of  this  conclu- 
sion. Nevertheless,  the  proof  which  Howorth  has  been  able  to 
bring  forward  is  by  no  means  conclusive ;  the  skeptic  would  not 

2  In  the  Academy,  1893,  January  7  and  21,  February  4  and  25,  April  15,  June  17,  July  22  ; 
in  the  Transactions  of  the  Ninth  International  Congress  of  Orientalists  at  London,  Vol.  II 
(1893),  i)p.  69-85  ;  and  (most  fully,  and  including  the  substance  of  all  the  previous  articles) 
in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology,  May,  1901,  pp.  147-59,  November, 
1901,  pp.  305-30,  June,  1902,  pp.  147-72,  and  November,  1902,  pp.  332-56. 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Erdras  17 

be  compelled  by  it.  He  does,  indeed,  show  with  a  formidable 
array  of  evidence  that  the  canonical  recension  of  Chron.-Ezr.- 
Neh.  might  well  he  much  later  than  the  First  Esdras  recension, 
but  he  fails  to  show  that  it  is  in  fact  later.  His  assumption  [Pro- 
ceedings Sac.  Bib.  Arch.,  May,  1901,  p.  151),  that  any  Greek 
translation  which  closely  follows  the  text  of  our  present  Hebrew 
Bible  must  be  derived  from  Aquila,  Symmachus,  or  Theodotion,  will 
hardly  be  accepted  by  those  who  have  carefully  studied  the  Greek 
Old  Testament.  He  assumes,  in  like  manner,  that  the  canonical 
Greek  version  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  is  the  work  of  Theodotion — 
as  Grotius,  Whiston,  and  Pohlmann  had  conjectured  before  him — 
but  without  being  able  to  bring  forward  any  shred  of  evidence  in 
favor  of  this  opinion,  beyond  the  fact  that  Theodotion's  version  of 
Daniel  has  found  a  place  in  our  Greek  Bible.  The  one  prime 
necessity  —  if  the  current  beliefs  as  to  the  Ezra  books  are  to  be 
superseded — is  a  well-grounded  and  plausible  theory  of 
the  origin  and  mutual  relations  of  the  two  recensions 
now  existing.  Such  a  theory  has  never  been  formulated,^  and 
Howorth  has  failed  to  provide  one.  His  main  conclusions,  touch- 
ing these  matters,  are  the  following:  (1)  First  Esdras  gives  us 
the  original  form  of  this  history  ;  that  is,  (a)  the  order  in  our 
apocryphon  (Ezr.  4  :  7-24  following  Ezr.  1 :  11,  and  Neh.  7  :  73 — 
8 :  12  following  Ezr.  10 :  44)  is  the  primary  and  correct  one ;  and 
(6)  the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  formed  a  part  of  the  history 
as  it  was  compiled  by  its  author.  (Howorth  makes  no  attempt  to 
prove  that  our  Greek  text  of  the  story  is  a  translation  from  the 
Semitic,  though  this  proof — which  has  never  been  supplied — 
is  essential  to  his  theory.)  (2)  Origen,  or  perhaps  "his  editors," 
made  our  First  Esdras  by  cutting  a  piece  out  of  the  middle  of  the 
"Septuagint"*  version  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.,  and  then  editing  and 
correcting  it  to  some  extent.  (3)  Our  canonical  Ezra-Nehemiah 
is  the  result  of  a  thoroughgoing  and  arbitrary  re-arrangement  of 
the  text,  undertaken  by  the  Jewish  rabbis,  who  (a)  knew  nothing 
of  Darius  (II)  Nothus,  and   (6)  wished  to  identify  Zerubbabel 

3  The  theory  which  is  set  forth  in  the  following  pages  was  presented  in  full  at  the  meet- 
ing of  the  American  Oriental  Society  at  Andover,  Mass.,  in  April,  1896,  but  was  not  printed. 

*  I  suppose  that  Howorth  means  by  "the  Septuagint"  that  Greek  translation  of  Chron.- 
Ezr.-Neh.  which  was  the  first  to  gain  wide  currency.  I  do  not  understand  him  to  imply  the 
belief  that  all— or  even  most— of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were  translated  at  the 
same  time,  or  by  the  same  persons,  or  in  any  official  or  uniform  way.  Would  it  not  be  better, 
in  the  interest  of  clearness  and  accuracy,  to  cease  altogether  from  using  the  term  "Septu- 
agint"  in  scientific  treatises? 


18  Ezra  Studies 

with  Sanabassar,  and  (c)  had  various  prejudices  which  led  them 
to  make  deliberate  and  extensive  alterations  in  the  story  of  Nehe- 
miah.  These  conclusions  each  and  all  present  such  serious  diffi- 
culties that,  in  my  opinion,  even  the  view  now  generally  held, 
with  all  its  absurdities,  would  be  likely  to  maintain  its  ground  in 
the  face  of  them. 

III.       THE    NATURE    OF    FIRST    ESDRAS 

The  main  facts  regarding  the  true  character  of  our  "apocry- 
phal" Ezra  book  may  be  stated  briefly  as  follows:  //  is  simply 
a  piece  taken  ivithout  change  out  of  the  middle  of  a  faithful  Greek 
translation  of  the  Chronicler'' s  History  of  Israel  in  the  form  ivhich 
was  generally  recognized  as  authentic  in  the  last  century  B.  C. 
This  was  not,  hoivever,  the  original  form  of  the  History,  hut  one 
which  had  undergone  several  important  changes. 

As  is  well  known,  the  apocryphal  book  and  the  canonical  book 
are,  in  the  main,  merely  duplicate  versions.  But  probably  many 
fail  to  realize  how  close  the  duplication  is.  First  Esdras  contains 
a  long  passage,  including  chaps.  3,  4,  and  the  first  six  verses  of 
chap.  5,  which  is  not  found  in  the  canonical  recension.  Aside 
from  this,  however,  its  material  contents  are  exactly  those  of  the 
corresponding  parts  of  Ezra-Nehemiah.  Beginning  with  the  last 
two  chapters  of  II  Chronicles,  it  then  includes  the  whole  of  the 
book  of  Ezra,  and  continues  with  a  portion  of  the  Ezra  narrative* 
which  is  now  in  our  book  of  Nehemiah,  namely,  Neh.  8 :  1-12 
and  the  beginning  of  the  first  clause  of  verse  13,  where  the  frag- 
ment ends.  In  every  part  of  all  this  history  the  two  recensions 
generally  agree  with  each  other  sentence  for  sentence  and  clause 
for  clause.  In  the  cases  where  they  fail  to  agree  the  differences 
are  due  to  the  usual  accidents  of  manuscript  transmission,  or  to 
mistakes  made  by  the  one  or  the  other  translator.  The  uni- 
versally accepted  view,  that  First  Esdras  is  a  free  translation, 
or  a  free  working-over  ("freie  Bearbeitung " )  of  the  material, 
is  mistaken.  The  translation  is  close,  and  the  text  as  a  whole  has 
not  been  "edited,"  nor  freely  handled. 

In  investigating  First  Esdras,  then,  the  all-important  point  of 
approach  is  the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths,  which  at  present  stands 
only  in  this  recension.    We  need  a  satisfactory  theory  of  its  origin 

i>As  I  have  shown  elsewhere,  the  passuRO  Neh.  7  :  70—8  :  18  originally  formed  a  part  of 
the  Chronicler's  story  of  Ezra  (followinR  Ezra  8),  and  was  accidentally  transposed  to 
the  place  where  it  now  stands.  See  my  Componition  and  Historical  Value  of  Ezra-Nehemiah, 
pp.  29-34.    I  shall  return  to  this  subject  later. 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras  19 

and  history,  and  especially  to  know  who  incorporated  it  in  this 
narrative,  whether  the  Chronicler  or  some  later  hand.  And  this 
necessarily  involves  the  further  question,  whether  the  original 
language  of  this  episode — or,  rather,  the  language  in  which  it 
stood  at  the  time  when  it  was  incorporated — was  Semitic  or 
Greek.  If  it  never  existed  in  Semitic  form,  then  it  certainly  never 
was  inserted  by  the  Chronicler  in  his  own  book,  nor  could  it  ever 
have  formed  a  part  of  any  Semitic  recension  of  these  narratives 
of  the  Jewish  exiles.  On  the  other  hand,  if  it  can  plausibly  be 
maintained  that  the  Greek  text  of  the  story,  as  we  have  it,  is  a 
translation  from  the  Hebrew  or  Aramaic,  then  we  have  at  hand 
the  solution  of  some  of  the  chief  problems  in  this  literary  tangle. 
It  is  fortunately  possible  to  decide  at  once  the  question  as  to 
the  Chronicler,  while  holding  the  question  of  the  original  language 
still  in  abeyance.  The  form  of  this  history  contained  in  I  Esdr., 
chaps.  2-5,  cannot  possibly  have  been  the  form  given  it  by  its 
author.  So  scholars  of  all  times  have  agreed,  with  hardly  a  dis- 
senting voice,  and  for  reasons  that  are  conclusive.  In  the  first 
place,  the  Artaxerxes  correspondence,  2  :  15-25  (=  Ezra  4  :  6-2-4), 
is  palpably  misplaced  here.  It  constitutes,  to  be  sure,  a  very  good 
introduction  to  the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths,  which  immediately 
follows,  but  forms  in  no  sense  the  continuation  of  2 :  1-14,  where 
the  narrative  is  obviously  cut  short  in  the  middle.  Again,  the 
Story  of  the  Youths  is  itself  a  disturbing  element,  and  the  disturb- 
ance this  time  is  far  more  serious.  The  presence  of  this  story 
inevitably  turns  the  whole  history  upside  down,  bringing 
in  contradictions  and  absurdities  from  which  there  is  no  escape. 
To  mention  only  a  single  point :  The  events  narrated  in  5  :  46- 
70  [47-73]  (notice  verses  53  [55],  68  [71],  and  70  [73]!)  are 
events  of  the  reign  of  Cyrus,  even  in  this  recension  !  There  is  no 
way  of  making  them  anything  else,  or  of  supposing  that  they  were 
ever  written  in  any  other  way.  It  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  any 
compiler  of  a  serious  history  could  make  such  an  outrageous  blun- 
der as  this.  What  is  more,  the  episode  of  the  Youths  cannot  be 
made  to  fit  in  anywhere  else.  Whoever  tests  the  matter  will 
speedily  find  that  there  is  no  point,  before,  in,  or  after  Ezra 
1-6,  at  which  this  episode  is  a  possibility ;  at  that,  too,  even  if  the 
name  of  the  king  be  changed  from  "Darius"  to  some  other  name. 
Removed  to  any  other  place,  it  causes  even  greater  disturbance 
than  it  makes  at  present. 


20  Ezra  Studies 

Obviously,  the  story  was  not  written  for  any  such  context  as 
this;  and  it  is  equally  obvious  that  the  writer  of  this  context  had 
no  thought  of  fitting  it  to  contain  the  episode.  The  conclusion  is 
certain,  that  the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  is  an  interpolation, 
not  a  part  of  the  history  as  it  was  originally  composed.  In  view 
of  the  manifest  traces  of  the  Chronicler's  hand  in  the  extra- 
canonical  verses  just  following  the  episode  and  serving  to 
connect  it  with  the  canonical  narrative  (see  below),  the  question 
might  seem  for  a  moment  to  be  a  legitimate  one,  whether  the 
Chronicler  himself  may  not  have  made  the  insertion,  as  an  after- 
thought. But  no  one  who  gives  the  matter  serious  consideration 
will  continue  to  entertain  this  hypothesis.  The  Chronicler  is  a 
writer  of  very  considerable  skill,  who  composed  this  history  with 
a  definite  purpose,  of  which  he  never  lost  sight.  He  is  most 
methodical  in  his  literary  habits,  and  we  know  him  to  be  one  who 
incorporated  documentary  sources  in  the  way  best  suited  to  his 
own  ends.  He  had  himself  carefully  composed  this  most  important 
narrative  of  the  return  (so  essential  to  his  pet  theory!),  writing 
it  out,  with  vivid  detail,  in  his  own  words  (as  scholars  agree).  It 
is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  could  have  undone  his  own 
work  and  have  given  the  lie  to  his  own  history  in  so  stupid  a 
manner,  by  squeezing  in  this  unnecessary  episode  in  an  impossible 
place.®  It  was  not  by  the  Chronicler,  then,  but  by  a  later  hand, 
that  the  story  was  interpolated. 

The  important  question  now  arises,  whether  the  interpolation 
was  made  in  the  original  Hebrew- Aramaic  text  of  the  history,  or 
in  the  Greek  translation.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  general  neglect 
which  First  Esdras  has  suffered,  that  no  one  has  recently  under- 
taken to  determine,  by  examining  the  evidence,  in  what  language 
the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  was  originally  written.  It  is 
generally  taken  for  granted  that  the  language  was  Greek,  and 
one  scholar  after  another  asserts  this  with  confidence.  Fritzsche 
{Handbuch,  p.  6)  wrote:  "Ein  hebraisches  Original  lag  nicht  zu 
Grunde,  die  Sprache  verrath  sich  durchaus  als  ursprftnglich 
hellenistisch ;  nur  der  Schluss,  5:1-6,  macht  eine  Ausnahme, 
und  von  diesem   besitzen  wir  das  Original   nicht  mehr."     This 

6  If  the  story  had  been  generally  believed  in  his  day,  he  would  have  known  it  when  ho 
composed  his  history.  If  it  was  not  generally  believed,  he  was  under  no  necessity  of  inserting 
it.  From  onr  knowledge  of  the  Chronicler,  we  should  not  expect  the  story  to  interest  him 
especially.  And  finally,  if  ho  had  wished  to  insert  it  in  his  completed  book,  he  might  easily 
have  prepared  a  suitable  place  for  it. 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras  21 

opinion  has  been  adopted,  as  usual,  by  Fritzsche's  successors; 
thus  Schtirer,  Reuss,  Konig,  Zockler,  Lupton,  Cornill  ("ohne 
Zweifel  griechisch  geschrieben " ) ,  Guthe  ("sicher  griechisch"), 
Bertholet,  and  many  others.  Most  of  these,  it  should  be  noted, 
make  an  exception  of  the  passage  5:1-6,  which  (like  Fritzsche) 
they  believe  to  have  been  translated  from  a  Hebrew  original. 
Howorth  asserts  that  the  story  was  written  in  a  "Semitic"  lan- 
guage (of  course,  his  theory  of  the  book  requires  this),  but  does 
not  attempt  to  go  farther.  Ball,  in  his  notes  in  The  Variorum 
Apocrypha  (1892),  suggested  one  or  two  hebraisms  in  these 
chapters,  but  did  not  thereby  make  a  Semitic  original  seem 
probable.  Renan  [Hist,  dii  peuple  cVIsrael,  IV,  p.  180,  note) 
said,  in  speaking  of  I  Esdr.,  chaps.  3  and  l:  ''The  original  was 
certainly  Hebrew." 

As  for  the  Greek  in  which  I  Esdr.  3:1 — 5:6  now  stands,  those 
who  believe  it  to  be  more  idiomatic  than  the  ordinary  "translation 
Greek"  of  the  Old  Testament  are  mistaken.  It  stands,  in  this 
regard,  on  exactly  the  same  plane  as  the  old  Greek  version  of 
Daniel,  or  that  of  the  books  of  the  Kings,  or  of  First  Maccabees. 
From  the  beginning  to  the  end,  it  shows  an  unbroken  succession 
of  Semitic  idioms,  reproduced  with  a  faithfulness  which  is  often 
very  clumsy,  and  in  several  cases  giving  plain  evidence  of  mis- 
translation. It  is  true  that  the  subject-matter  (namely,  in 
the  section  3:18 — 4:32)  is  unlike  anything  else  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment; and  it  is  this  fact,  unquestionably,  which  misled  Fritzsche 
into  making  his  extraordinary  remark  about  the  language  of  the 
document.  But  if  any  student  of  the  Greek  Bible  will  look 
closely  at  the  idiom  of  these  two  chapters,  he  will  find  it  precisely 
the  same  which  elsewhere  results  from  a  close  rendering  of  a 
Hebrew  or  Aramaic  original.  Again,  though  as  regards  subject- 
matter  and  mode  of  treatment  the  section  just  named  happens  to 
stand  alone  in  our  Old  Testament  literature,  it  is  by  no  means 
true  that  it  has  a  "Hellenistic"  sound.  All  those  who  are  familiar 
with  Semitic  modes  of  thought  and  literary  forms  will  recognize 
here  a  characteristic  Semitic  product. 

The  fact  must  not  be  overlooked,  that  the  first  six  verses  of 
chap.  5  are  almost  universally  pronounced  a  translation  from  a 
Semitic  original,  as  above  noted.  The  fact  usually  is  overlooked. 
Those  who  make  the  exception  straightway  forget  it,  and  certainly 
never  attempt  to  explain  it.     On  what  theory  can  this  translated 


22  EzBA  Studies 

"fragment"  be  accounted  for?  At  present  it  plays  a  very  impor- 
tant part  in  helping  to  connect  the  Story  of  the  Youths  with  the 
Hebrew  narrative  5:  7  if.  (  =  Ezra  2:  1  fP.).  Its  points  of  affinity 
with  either  section  are  obvious,  and  certainly  not  accidental.  It 
sounds  as  though  it  were  of  one  piece  with  the  verses  which  imme- 
diately follow  it,  as  well  as  with  those  which  immediately  precede 
it;  and  as  for  the  Three  Youths,  there  is  an  express  allusion  to 
them  (somewhat  parenthetical,  to  be  sure)  in  vs.  6.  But  what 
end  this  passage  of  six  verses  may  have  served  when  connected 
with  neither  portion  of  its  present  context,  no  one,  so  far  as  I 
know,  has  ever  ventured  to  guess.  Of  course,  if  the  Episode  of 
the  Youths  were  originally  written  in  Greek,  it  would  follow  that 
these  six  verses  must  have  belonged  to  an  entirely  separate  docu- 
ment. As  for  the  following  narrative  (the  Chronicler's),  if 
this  passage  (5:  1-6)  originally  formed  a  part  of  it,  how  has  it 
disappeared  from  our  canonical  book?  And  if  it  did  not  origi- 
nally belong  to  it,  how  in  the  world  can  it  have  been  detached 
from  its  proper  surroundings  and  brought  to  this  place  ?  Guthe's 
amazing  suggestion  (Kautzsch's  Apokryphen,  p.  2)  that  it  was 
composed  by  "the  redactor"  (!)  certainly  needs  no  refutation. 
The  passage  bears  no  resemblance  whatever  to  an  editorial  patch. 
Nor  is  any  theory  of  an  isolated  fragment  plausible.  We  are  not 
driven  to  any  such  strait  as  this,  that  we  should  be  obliged  to 
postulate  a  lost  narrative  of  a  return  of  Jews  from  Babylonia, 
written  in  Hebrew  and  translated  into  Greek,  and  now  surviving 
only  in  these  six  verses!  There  is  a  far  simpler  hypothesis. 
Just  as  soon  as  it  is  observed  that  the  Greek  of  this  passage  is  the 
result  of  translation,  it  becomes  probable  that  the  Story  of  the 
Youths  was  incorporated  in  a  Semitic  form. 

There  is  still  other  important  evidence  of  this  nature  pointing 
to  the  same  conclusion.  The  latter  part  of  chap.  4  cannot  so 
easily  be  separated  from  the  first  part  of  chap.  5.  There  is  no 
perceptible  break,  nor  anything  to  make  it  probable  that  two 
separate  documents  are  joined  at  this  point.  The  two  concluding 
verses  of  chap.  4  cannot  have  formed  the  end  of  a  piece  of  narra- 
tive. The  closing  words  of  verse  63,  "and  they  feasted  .... 
seven  days,'"  make  it  plain  that  their  author  intended  to  narrate 
what  took  place  after  the  seven  days.  And  in  like  manner  the 
first  words  of  5:1,  ^'-  After  this  there  were  chosen,"  etc.,  presuppose 
the  words  which  just  precede  them.     The  two  parts  agree  per- 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras  23 

fectly,  and  any  attempt  to  pull  them  apart  has  the  presumption 
strongly  against  it.  Two  documents  were  united,  beyond  doubt, 
somewhere  in  this  vicinity,  but  it  was  not  at  tJiis  point.  And 
again,  the  evidence  of  translation  from  a  Semitic  original  is  quite 
as  noticeable  in  the  latter  part  of  chap.  -4  as  it  is  in  5:  1-6. 
Observe,  for  example,  the  idiom  in  vs.  G3:  kuI  to  lepov  ov  oyvofidadr) 
TO  ovofia  avTov  eir  avTca;  and  similarly  in  vs.  5-4:  eV  tCvl  Xarpev- 
ovatv  iv  avTy.  Now  although  these  verses  do  not  belong  to  the 
unexpanded  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  (which,  as  will  be  shown 
presently,  ends  at  4:  42),  they  b&long  to  the  context  in  which  it 
was  imbedded.  Moreover,  in  some  of  the  verses  which  now  form 
a  part  of  the  Story,  and  can  only  have  been  written  in  continua- 
tion of  it,  the  marks  which  indicate  the  work  of  a  translator  are 
plainly  to  be  seen.  The  verses  4:  44-46,  57,  for  example,  in  the 
sustained  awkwardness  with  which  they  render  Semitic  idioms— 
and  probably  reproduce  Semitic  blunders — could  easily  be  paral- 
leled in  other  specimens  of  "translation  Greek,"  but  hardly  in 
Greek  of  any  other  type. 

The  antecedent  probability,  from  every  side,  of  a  Semitic  ori- 
ginal for  the  Episode  is  thus  overwhelming,  and  we  may  fairly 
take  for  granted,  at  the  outset,  the  fact  of  translation  (substi- 
tuting "ohne  Zweifel  semitisch"  for  "ohne  Zweifel  griechisch"). 
Only  very  strong  evidence  in  the  Greek  text  of  3:  1 — 4:  42,  such 
evidence,  namely,  as  to  show  that  it  could  not  have  been  the 
work  of  a  translator,  could  suffice  to  shake  this  probability ;  and 
such  evidence,  as  has  already  been  said,  is  not  to  be  had. 

It  only  remains  to  determine  whether  the  original  language 
was  Hebrew  or  Aramaic.  This  question,  usually  a  very  difficult 
one,  is  here  rendered  easy  of  answer  by  the  use  of  the  Greek  word 
ToVe,  in  3:  4,  8;  4:  33,  41,  42,  43,  47,  which  points  plainly  to  an 
Aramaic  original.  The  only  places  in  the  Greek  Old  Testament 
in  which  roVe,  "then,"  "thereupon,"  is  consistently  used  to  con- 
tinue a  narrative  are  the  Aramaic  portions  of  Daniel  and  Ezra 
and  this  Story  of  the  Three  Youths.  The  usage  is  neither  Greek 
nor  Hebrew;  the  word  can  stand  only  for  the  Aramaic  "j'^nj^  (or 
"pii^Il).  It  is  not  a  question  of  one  or  two  occurrences,  such  as 
can  be  found  here  and  there  in  all  Greek  literature ;  the  word 
appears  again  and  again,  all  through  the  narrative,  in  every  one 
of  these  sections  in  which  the  Greek  is  translated  from  Aramaic, 
but  does  not  appear  similarly  anywhere  else.     In  this  Story  there 


24:  Ezra  Studies 

is  very  little  narrative,  the  space  being  occupied  with  discourses, 
letters  and  decrees,  and  the  like;  but  wherever  the  story  is  resumed 
(notice  especially  4:  41-47)  we  are  pretty  sure  to  see  sentences 
and  paragraphs  headed  by  totc. 

Among  the  other  marks  of  translation,  the  following  are  note- 
worthy : 

3:3.  ical  €^virvo<i  iyeveTO  is  quite  impossible.  The  king  is 
(and  must  be,  for  the  sake  of  the  story)  sound  asleep  until  vs.  13; 
of.  vss.  8  and  9!  Those  who  were  "waking"  were  the  three  men' 
who  constituted  his  body-guard.  The  original  text  may  have  read 
in  some  such  way  as  this:  K^/J'b^  nnbn  '{"l^^  ilH  V^.^n'^^  , 
"Thereupon  the  three  youths  bestirred  themselves"  (or  "stood 
on  guard").  The  change  would  then  have  been  very  easy,  since 
'pi^n  almost  invariably  (but  not  always;  see  Dan.  7:  11)  begins 
the  sentence. 

3:5.  eva  Xojov.  The  customary  use  of  1"  in  the  place  of  an 
indefinite  article.     So  also  4:18. 

3:5.  09  virepicrxvaei,  is  a  sure  mistranslation.  It  should  be  rt 
imepiaxvet,  "what  thing  is  the  strongest,"  see  vss.  10-12.  The 
Aramaic  probably  had  "'1  TT2  . 

3:12.  vTrep  Be  iravTa  vlko.  rj  oKrjdeLa.  The  virep  is  impossible 
in  Greek,  as  commentators  have  remarked  (see  especially  Fritz- 
sche).  It  is  simply  the  translation  of  b:? ,  with  which  the  verb 
nSlwDn  is  regularly  construed;  cf.  Dan.  6:4. 

4:14.  TToXXoi  is  an  obvious  (and  quite  natural)  mistranslation 
of  'run^l.  The  meaning  in  the  original  was  "men  are  mighty,''^ 
not  "men  are  numerous;''''  cf.  vs.  2. 

4:15,  16.  The  translator  has  here  given  us  a  false  rendering 
and  an  incorrect  division  of  clauses.  Instead  of  our  meaning- 
less text,  we  must  put  a  comma  after  ^aaiXea,  and  then  read: 
Kal  TTtt?  6  Xab^  09  Kvptevei  Tr)9  da\d(Tar]<i  Kol  rrjt  yrj<;  e|  avrwv 
iyep€To.  Cf.  again  vs.  2.  The  mistranslation  is  one  of  a  very 
common  type. 

4:17.  Is  it  possible  that  we  have  here  a  double  rendering? 
Some  such  word  as  5<1"n ,  or  J^linQlT ,  for  example,  would 
account  for  both  aroXaf  and  So^av,  the  one  translation  being  lit- 
eral and  the  other  interpretative.  The  (rroXaC  are  not  needed 
here.  Compare  the  uses  of  the  Hebrew  words  "lin ,  ''ll ,  and 
riii<Eri,  and  the  (mistranslated)  verse  I  Mace.  14:9. 

'Ordinarily  called  "paKCs"  because  of  the  misunderstanding  of  this  verse. 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras  25 

4:31.  Kal  7r/oo9  tovtol<:.  Probably  for  HS'^  D^l,  which  should 
here  have  been  translated  "and  in  spite  o/this." 

4:37.  Kal  ovK  eoTLV  should  probably  be  el  ovk  eanv.  The 
original  may  well  have  been  SD'^T^p  "jinn  ■'^^^  J^b*)  ;  all  men  and 
all  their  works  are  evil,  "//"truth  be  not  in  them;"  or  the  initial 
letter  of  "H  ,  "if,"  may  have  fallen  out  accidentally  after  the  last 
letter  of  the  preceding  word  (rotauTa  =  njl  or  ^!^^5). 

4:39.  TO.  BiKaca  Troiel  airo  iravTcov  tmv  aSiKoov  Kal  irovi]poiv.  The 
aTTo  is  a  monstrosity  here;  see  the  commentaries.  The  Lagarde 
text,  hiKaia  Trotel,  Kal  airo  Trdvrwv  rwv  uBikcov  Kal  irovrjpoiv  aTre^erat, 
is  arbitrarily  corrected,  as  the  evidence  of  manuscripts  and  ver- 
sions shows  conclusively.  Fritzsche  thinks  it  likely  that  some 
Hebrew  idiom  "schwebte  dem  Verfasser  vor,"  but  confesses  his 
inability  to  find  an  example  of  it  in  our  Hebrew  Bible.  We  have 
precisely  this  idiom  in  biblical  Aramaic,  in  Ezra  7:26.  The 
original  text  here  was  therefore  undoubtedly  ■j'J  123?  Sr'1  'Xi^ 
i^Jiji"^'©"!']  J<^(13''3  "pnbS  ;  Truth  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  "but 
executes  judgment  upon  all  evil  and  wicked  men."  The 
Latin  and  Syriac  versions  render  correctly. 

These  examples  will  suffice.  The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths 
was  written  in  Aramaic,  and  was  inserted  by  a  redactor  in  the 
Hebrew-Aramaic  text  of  the  Chronicler's  history. 

The  process  of  combining  the  two  narratives  necessarily 
involved  some  harmonistic  labors  on  the  part  of  the  redactor. 
The  Story,  in  its  original  form,  does  not  seem  to  have  made  any 
mention  of  the  Jews.  As  far  as  4:42 — ^  where  it  may  well  have 
ended — it  contains  not  a  word  to  give  it  connection  with  Jewish 
history  or  interests,  with  the  exception  of  the  single  parenthetical 
clause  in  vs.  11,  oSto?  eariv  Zopo/Sa^eX  (buHlT  lJ<ln),  which  has 
been  universally  recognized  as  an  addition  by  a  later  hand.  It 
may  well  be  that  this  very  brief,  but  very  potent,  gloss  antedates 
the  expanded  form  of  the  Story,  and  in  fact  was  the  ultimate 
cause  of  its  inclusion  in  a  history  of  the  Jewish  people;  but,  be 
that  as  it  may,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  the  expansion  itself, 
through  which  the  Story  was  made  into  a  tale  of  exiles  return- 
ing to  Jerusalem  by  royal  decree,  was  the  work  of  the  self- 
same redactor  who  interpolated  it  in  the  Chronicler's  book. 

Now  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  Chronicler  himself  is 
giving,  at  this  very  point,  an  account  of  a  return  of  exiles  from 
Babylonia;  and,  what  is  more,  that  the  leaders  of  his  expedition 


26  Ezra  Studies 

are  Jeshua  and  Zerubbabel.  The  last  portion  of  his  narrative 
preceding  the  interpolated  matter  is  2:1-14  (=  Ezra,  chap.  1). 
In  this  he  had  told  of  the  proclamation  of  King  Cyrus,  and  how 
the  Jews  prepared  to  obey  it;  then,  further,  how  the  king  brought 
out  the  sacred  vessels  belonging  to  the  temple  in  Jerusalem 
(which  are  fully  described  and  numbered),  and  delivered  them 
into  the  hand  of  a  Jewish  prince  named  Sheshbazzar.  At  this 
point  the  narrative  is  interrupted  by  the  interpolation. 
The  next  portion  of  the  history  which  is  certainly  known  to  come 
from  the  hand  of  the  Chronicler  is  the  list,  5:7-42  (=Ezra 
2:1-67),  and  where  the  narrative  is  resumed  at  the  close  of  the 
list  it  appears  that  the  returning  exiles  are  already  in  Jerusalem. 
This  is  a  surprising  leap,  especially  for  such  a  narrator  as  the 
Chronicler.  We  should  certainly  expect  him  to  describe,  with 
some  detail,  the  starting  of  the  expedition;  to  make  express  men- 
tion of  the  two  leaders,  Jeshua  and  Zerubbabel,  whom  he  else- 
where makes  so  prominent;  to  tell  of  the  provision  made  by  the 
king — and  afterward  referred  to  —  for  the  aid  of  the  Jews  and 
especially  for  the  building  of  the  temple;  and  so  on.^  The  prob- 
ability at  once  suggests  itself,  that  a  part  of  the  Chronicler's  nar- 
rative is  contained  in  the  long  sequel  to  the  Story  of  the  Three 
Youths,  that  is,  in  the  section  4:43  —  5:6. 

It  would,  of  course,  be  the  wish  of  the  interpolator  to  use  the 
original  narrative  as  far  as  possible;  and  in  this  case  that  would 
be  especially  easy,  since  all  the  circumstances,  and  even  the  names 
(excepting  only  the  name  of  the  king),  are  identical.  This  prob- 
ability becomes  much  stronger  as  soon  as  we  observe  the  peculiar 
way  in  which  the  expansion  of  the  Story  has  been  eflPected.  As  was 
remarked  above,  it  has  been  left  absolutely  untouched — saving 
the  gloss  of  two  words  in  4:13  —  all  the  way  from  the  beginning, 
8:1,  to  4:42,  which  is  evidently  the  last  verse  of  the  original 
story  which  we  have.  It  would  have  been  an  easy  matter,  and, 
we  should  say,  most  desirable,  to  add  a  bit  of  Jewish  color- 
ing, especially  at  the  beginning,  if  only  in  order  to  make  the  con- 
nection more  plausible.  But  the  redactor  took  his  task  very 
easily,  and  apparently  limited  his  own  editorial  additions  to  what 
was  absolutely  necessary.  In  view  of  this,  it  is  surprising  to  find 
that  the  extra-canonical  matter  constituting  the  sequel  to  the 
Story  occupies  twenty-seven  verses — about  half  the  extent  of  the 

8Soo  my  brief  statement  of  the  case  in  the  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,  1897 
pp.  168-70. 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras  27 

Story  itself.  And  who  is  this  who  now  begins  to  write  at  such 
length,  and  so  methodically,  what  sounds  like  a  piece  of  carefully 
composed  history  (vss.  47  ft'.),  and  with  such  disproportionate 
interest  in  "the  priests  and  the  Levites"  (vss.  52-56)  and  in 
"instruments  of  music"  (4:  63,  5:2)  ?  These  are  the  pet  interests 
of  the  Chronicler  himself;  his  peculiar  property,  in  fact. 

There  is,  indeed,  plain  evidence  of  composition  in  this  long 
sequel,  4:43 — 5:6,  showing  that  it  consists  of  the  work  of  the 
interpolator  plus  the  work  of  the  Chronicler.  In  the  verse  5:6, 
especially,  we  can  see  how  a  harmonistic  gloss  has  been  added  to 
the  original  text.  The  date,  as  it  stands,  is  altogether  out  of 
place;  and,  indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  reason  for  telling 
in  any  place  the  day  of  the  month  on  which  Zerubbabel  made  his 
successful  speech.  The  words  just  preceding  the  date,  "he  who 
spoke  wise  words  before  Darius,"  are  an  obvious  gloss,  the  last  of 
the  redactional  patches  by  means  of  which  the  two  documents 
were  combined.  This  statement  of  year,  month,  and  day  was 
originally  the  Chronicler's  date  of  the  return  from  Baby- 
lon. Commentators  have  wondered  why  such  a  date  was  missing, 
in  this  history  in  which  month  and  day  of  the  month  are  never 
wanting,  and  on  this  occasion  which  overshadowed  all  others  in 
importance.  Verse  6  originally  read:  "in  the  second  year  of  the 
reign  of  Cyrus,  the  king  of  Persia,'  in  the  month  Nisan,  on  the 
first  day*"  of  the  month."  The  interpolator  was,  of  course,  obliged 
to  alter  "Cyrus"  to  "Darius"  (as  also  in  5:2),  and  the  insertion 
of  his  gloss  necessitated  a  slight  change  in  the  wording  of  the 
sentence.  Whoever  examines  5:1-6  closely  will  see  that  it  is 
written  throughout  in  the  characteristic  phrases  of  the  Chronicler, 
and  this  is  true  also  of  much  of  the  latter  part  of  chap.  4.  The 
redactor's  part  is,  indeed,  as  we  were  led  to  expect,  a  compara- 
tively small  one.  Two  brief  passages,  purely  harmonistic,  and 
easily  recognized,  are  all  that  he  has  added,  namely,  vss.  43-46 
(with  the  first  clause  of  vs.  47)  and  vss.  57-61." 

This  conclusion,  as  to  the  Chronicler's  authorship  of  4:  47-56 
in  particular,  receives  important  confirmation  from  without.     In 

9 The  phrase  "king  of  Persia,"  D1S  "^bia,  is  a  well-known  mark  of  the  Chronicler's 
hand. 

10 In  the  Greek,  toO  irpurou  iir]v6<:,  "  the  first  month,"  is  derived  by  some  mistake  from 
Ttjnn^   "inS3'  »«  many  have  observed. 

11  These  two  patches,  small  as  they  are,  contain  some  things  of  interest.  Observe  the 
statement  regarding  the  Edomites,  in  vs.  45,  and  the  very  unusual  phrase  "  king  of  heaven," 
in  vss.  46  and  58. 


28  EzBA  Studies 

Ezra  3:7  we  are  told  how  cedar- wood  for  the  building  of  the 
temple  was  brought  to  the  Jews  from  Lebanon  "  according  to  the 
(jvdnt  ivJiich  they  had  from  Cyrus,  king  of  Persia/''  but  the  pre- 
ceding narrative,  in  our  canonical  recension,  contains  no  record  of 
any  such  grant.  But  in  this  fragment  of  the  Chronicler's  history 
which  survives  in  First  Esdras,  in  4: -48,  we  have  the  edict  to 
which  reference  was  made:  "He  (Cyrus)  wrote  letters  also  unto 
....  those  that  were  in  Lebanon,  that  they  should  bring  cedar- 
wood  from  Lebanon  to  Jerusalem."  Again  in  Ezra  3:1  ( =  I  Esdr. 
5:4l)  [-47])  there  is  a  statement  of  time  which  presupposes  a  defi- 
nite date  in  the  preceding  narrative.  Just  after  the  long  list  of 
returning  exiles,  and  the  subjoined  statement  that  the  people 
arrived  in  Jerusalem  and  settled  there  and  in  the  neighboring 
cities,  the  narrative  continues:  "And  when  the  seventh  month 
was  come,"  etc.  In  our  canonical  Ezra  there  is  no  preceding 
date,  to  which  this  can  be  referred.  The  date  in  1:1,  "The  first 
year  of  Cyrus,  King  of  Persia,"  is  not  to  be  thought  of,  both  because 
it  is  too  indefinite  and  because  the  time  would  be  far  too  short. 
And  the  Chronicler  is  particular  about  such  matters  as  these ;  see, 
for  example,  Ezra  7:8,  9,  and  8:31.  But  in  the  First  Esdras 
recension,  just  before  this  list  of  returning  exiles,  we  find  the 
missing  date,  in  5:6  (the  verse  which  has  already  been  discussed; 
see  above). 

First  Esdras,  then  contains  a  portion  of  the  Chronicler's  history 
which  has  been  lost  from  our  canonical  book  of  Ezra.  The  original 
narrative  passed  directly  on  from  2:14  (  =  Ezra  1:11)  to  4:47, 
which  began  thus:  "  [And  Cyrus  the  king]  wrote  letters  for  him 
(i.  6.,  for  Sheshbazzar)  unto  all  the  administrators  and  governors," 
etc.  Then,  after  the  section  4:47-56,  there  followed  immedi- 
ately 4 :  62—5 : 6,  and  then  5 : 7  tf .  ( =  Ezra  2 : 1  tf . ) .  There  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  the  history,  as  thus  restored,  is  complete  and 
in  the  very  same  form  which  its  author  gave  it. 

The  interpolator,  for  his  part,  wrote  4:43-46,  and  the  first 
clause  of  vs.  47  (altering  the  original  slightly  here),  and  vss. 
57-61.  He  also  changed  "Cyrus"  to  "Darius"  in  5:2  and  5:6, 
and  inserted  a  gloss  in  the  latter  verse."  Whether  the  gloss  in 
4:13  is  from  him,  or  from  a  previous  hand,  may  be  questioned. 
It  was  he,  finally,  who  transposed  the  Artaxerxes  correspondence, 
Ezra  4:6-24,  to  the  place  where  it  now  stands  in  First  Esdras. 

•■^  The  "Joachim"  of  this  vorso  canin  from  a  niisroad  Dp'^^'l.  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere. 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras  29 

It  is  an  interesting  question,  at  what  point  the  Aramaic  text 
ended,  and  the  Hebrew  text  began,  in  the  composite  narrative. 
It  is,  of  course,  certain  that  the  Chronicler  himself  wrote  all  of 
this  portion  of  his  history  in  Hebrew  (or  what  may  be  allowed  to 
pass  for  Hebrew) ;  and  it  is  hardly  less  certain  that  the  interpo- 
lator was  as  well  acquainted  with  the  one  language  as  with  the 
other.  No  one  will  question  that  the  verses  4:43-46,  at  least, 
were  written  in  Aramaic;"  and  it  may  also  be  taken  for  granted 
that  the  passage  5:1-6  was  allowed  to  stand  in  its  original 
Hebrew.  But  in  regard  to  the  intermediate  portion,  4:47-63, 
there  is  room  for  doubt,  since  it  is  conceivable  that  the  interpola- 
tor should  have  written  vss.  57-61  in  Aramaic,  and  then  have 
translated  the  Chronicler's  Hebrew  up  to  and  just  beyond 
that  point,  in  order  to  conceal  from  sight  the  real  place  of  the 
juncture.  It  is  improbable,  however,  that  he  would  have  made 
himself  this  unnecessary  labor.  So  far  as  we  can  judge,  from  the 
very  few  Jewish  productions  of  this  period  that  have  survived,  the 
combination  of  Hebrew  and  Aramaic  in  the  same  document  was 
a  common  thing.  It  was  possible,  for  instance,  for  the  Chronicler 
to  compose  Ezra  6: 16-18  in  Aramaic,  and  then  continue  the  same 
narrative  in  Hebrew  in  vss.  19  ff.— although  he  could  not  have 
had  any  reason  for  wishing  to  deceive  his  readers  as  to  where  the 
preceding  document  ended.  Similarly,  in  Dan.  2:4  we  see  the 
change  from  the  one  language  to  the  other  taking  place  in  the 
middle  of  a  sentence,  the  narrative  then  going  on  as  though 
nothing  had  happened.  Obviously,  such  abrupt  changes  as  these 
were  not  felt  to  be  disturbing.  So  far  as  the  Greek  of  this  part 
of  First  Esdras  is  concerned,  the  last  sure  sign  of  an  Aramaic 
original  is  the  rore  of  vs.  47.  Beyond  this  point,  the  language 
seems  to  me  everywhere  to  suggest  Hebrew  rather  than  Aramaic, 
though  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  decisive  proof.  I  there- 
fore believe  that  the  interpolator's  Aramaic  continued  as  far  as  the 
first  words  of  the  Chronicler's  narrative,  and  that  everything  after 
this  was  Hebrew,  incliTding  vss.  57-61.     That  is,  vs.  47  began 

13  Aside  from  the  strong  probability  that  this  added  patch  would  be  written  in  the  same 
language  as  the  preceding  narrative,  we  have  the  evidence  of  totc  in  vs.  43,  the  position  of 
the  infinitive  6(C7re>i//ai  in  vs.  44,  and  the  Kvpie  ^ao-iAeO  (apparently  XSb'Q  '^X'lTG  i  n'^in  Dan. 
4:21)  in  vs.  46.  The  last-named  verso,  by  tho  way,  contains  an  evident  mistranslation,  the 
conjunction  1  being  rendered  by  xai,  instead  of  by  some  word  meaning,  "  since,"  "  inasmuch 
as."  The  Aramaic  was:  TfHlb  ']'Q  C^l)  Sri^3"1  S"^?!  i?""!,  "since  such  munificence  is 
thine."  XmDT  used  here  exactly  like  nb^l3i  in  II  Sam.  7:'21,  I  Chron.  17:19,  where  also 
the  Greek  rendered  by  /uicYaAuo-ut-jj. 


30  Ezra  Studies 

in  Aramaic:  "Then  Darius  the  king  arose,  and  kissed  him;"  and 
it  was  continued  in  Hebrew:  "And  he  wrote  letters  for  him  unto 
all  the  administrators  and  governors,"  etc. 

The  result  of  this  investigation  has  been,  to  restore  a  lost 
half-chapter  to  our  "canonical"  Old  Testament — a  thing  which 
has  never  been  done  before,  and  presumably  will  never  be  done 
again — and  to  give  the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  its  true  place 
as  an  important  specimen  of  old  Aramaic  literature.  I  hope  to 
throw  further  light  on  the  origin  of  this  Story  in  a  subsequent 
chapter. 

IV.       THE    ORIGIN    OF    OUR    TWO    RECENSIONS 

The  Chronicler,  probably  not  far  from  the  middle  of  the  third 
century  b.  c,  but  possibly  later,  wrote  his  Levitical  History  of 
Israel.  Its  contents,  in  their  original  order,  were  as  follows: 
I  and  II  Chronicles;  Ezr.  1;  /  Esdr.  4:47-56;  4:62—5:6; 
Ezr.  2:1—8:36;  Neh.  7:70—8:18;  Ezr.  9:1—10:44;  Neh. 
9:1—10:40;  Neh.  1:1—7:69;  11:1—13:31. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  B.  c.  this  history  was 
current  only  in  a  form  which  differed  from  the  original  form  in 
two  important  particulars:  (1)  Three  chapters  originally  belonging 
to  the  story  of  Ezra  had  been  accidentally  transposed,  by  a  natural 
mistake,"  into  the  book  of  Nehemiah.  (2)  The  Aramaic  Story  of 
the  Three  Youths  had  been  interpolated.  The  interpolator  added 
a  few  harmonistic  verses  at  the  end  of  the  Story,  and  also  trans- 
posed the  passage  Ezra  4:6-24  to  a  place  just  before  it. 

Somewhat  later,  still  another  alteration  found  its  w'ay  into 
numerous  copies  of  the  work.  The  fact  that  the  account  of 
the  reading  of  the  Law  (Neh.  7:73 — 8:18),  and  that  of  the 
sealing  of  the  covenant  (Neh.  9:1 — 10:40),  had  originally 
belonged  to  the  story  of  Ezra  was  not  lost  sight  of  among 
the  Jews.  Accordingly,  someone,  at  some  time  in  the  last 
century  b.  c,  made  an  attempt  to  restore  the  history  to  its  true 
form  by  transposing  these  chapters  to  the  place  from  which 
they  were  supposed  to  have  come.  That  is,  they  were  simply 
appended  to  the  story  of  Ezra,  being  made  to  follow  Ezra 
10.  It  must  be  noted,  however,  that  not  all  of  the  matter 
which  had  originally  belonged  to  the  story  of  Ezra  was  restored 
at  this  time.  The  three  verses  Neh.  7:70-72  were  so  securely 
lodged  in  their  new  surroundings  (owing  to  the  same  considera- 

•♦Sco  my  Composition  of  Ezr.-Neh.,  p.  34. 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras  31 

tioiis  which  had  caused  their  transfer  thither)  that  they  were  no 
longer  movable.  The  re-transferred  section  accordingly  began 
with  7:73. 

The  result  was  (as  we  have  the  best  of  evidence)  that  two 
editions  of  the  Chronicler's  book,  with  its  interpolated  Story  of 
the  Youths,  were  current  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era. 
The  two  differed  only  at  one  point,  namely,  the  section  Neh.  7:73 
— 10:40,  containing  the  story  of  the  Reading  of  the  Law  and 
the  account  of  the  Sealing  of  the  Covenant.  In  the  one  edition 
(call  it  A)  the  position  of  this  section  was  the  same  as  in  our 
massoretic  Hebrew  Bible;  in  the  other  edition  (call  it  B)  it  had 
been  appended  to  the  Book  of  Ezra,  of  which  it  formed  the  close, 
Ezra  10:44  being  continued  by  Neh.  7:73;  and  in  neither 
edition  were  the  two  narratives  which  constitute  this  section  in 
their  original  and  proper  context !  To  describe  the  two  editions 
a  little  more  fully: 

A  =  I  and  II  Chron. ;  history  from  Cyrus  to  the  com- 
pletion of  the  temple  as  in  I  Esdr. ;  stories  of  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah  as  in  our  Hebrew  Bible, 

B  =  I  and  II  Chron. ;  history  from  Cyrus  to  the  com- 
pletion of  the  temple  as  in  I  Esdr. ;  story  of  Ezra 
concluding  with  Neh.  7:73 — 10:40;  story  of  Nehe- 
miah as  in  our  Hebrew  Bible  minus  the  section 
just  mentioned. 

One  point  in  the  description  of  Edition  B  requires  special 
proof  here,  namely,  the  statement  that  not  only  Neh.  8,  but 
also  chaps.  9  and  10,  were  retransposed  to  the  end  of  Ezra. 
That  chap.  8  was  thus  transferred  we  know,  of  course,  from  First 
Esdras.  Our  only  surviving  text,  however,  breaks  off  at  the 
beginning  of  vs.  13,  in  this  chapter;  so  for  an  answer  to  the 
question.  What  came  next  ?  we  must  turn  to  other  evidence.  This 
is  of  two  kinds: 

1.  General  prohabilitij. — Chaps.  9  and  10  had  long  been 
connected  with  chap.  8,  and  must  have  been  felt  to  be  of  one 
piece  with  it.  Whoever  had  acumen  enough  to  see  that  chap.  8 
was  out  of  place  in  the  Book  of  Nehemiah  must  also  have  seen 
(as  readers  of  the  book  in  all  ages  have  seen)  that  chaps.  9  and 
10  belonged  with  equal  certainty  to  the  story  of  Ezra.  The 
testimony  of  such  verses  as  9:1-3,  4f.  (cf.  8:4,  7);  10:28(1),  29, 


32  Ezra  Studies 

30,  could  not  be  misunderstood.'*  And  with  chap.  8  removed, 
the  incongruity  of  chaps.  9  and  10  with  their  surroundings  would 
be  very  much  more  obvious.  Imagine  0:1  following  directly 
upon  7:72! 

2.  The  evidence  from  Joseph  us. — Josephus,  who  is  the  earliest 
writer  (of  those  known  to  us)  to  excerpt  the  Chronicler's  history, 
used  Edition  B.  As  his  method  is  to  give  only  such  extracts  as 
suit  his  purpose,  and  he  frequently  vaults  over  whole  chapters  and 
gives  to  others  only  a  •sentence  or  a  clause,  it  is  not  always  easy 
to  follow  him.  The  two  chapters,  Neh,  9  and  10,  obviously  con- 
tain hardly  anything  that  he  could  use  for  his  history;  and,  in 
fact,  he  makes  no  use  of  them  at  all,  unless  we  find  them  alluded 
to  in  certain  phrases  at  the  end  of  his  abridgment  of  Neh.  8. 
In  telling  the  story  of  Ezra,  when  he  comes  to  the  account  of 
the  reading  of  the  law  he  gives  in  concise  form  the  contents  of 
Neh.  8,  to  the  very  end  of  the  chapter  [Antt.,  xi,  154-57).  In 
finishing  the  account,  he  says  that  Ezra  urged  the  people  not  to 
mourn,  saying  that  it  would  be  better  for  them  at  that  time  to 
keep  the  feast  with  joy,  koI  ttjv  jxeTavotav  koI  Xvttijv  rrjv  iirl  rot? 
efiTrpoadev  i^i]/MapTr]fi€voi<;  acn^akeidv  re  e^eiv  koI  (f)v\aKr)v  tov  ixr]hkv 
ofioiov  a-vfiireaeiv.  And  he  then  adds,  that  after  the  people  had 
kept  the  feast  for  the  eight  days,  ave^coprjaav  ek  to,  oiKela  jxera 
v/iivcov  TOV  deov  (cf.  Neh.  9:5?)  Trj<;  eTravopOataeoi^  tcov  jrepl  to  ttoXl- 
Teufia  TrapavofirjdevTcov  "K^Spa  %a/3iy  et'SoVe?.  Either  one  or  both 
of  these  passages  may  well  have  been  suggested  by  Neh.  9  and 
10;  but  more  than  this  can  hardly  be  said.  Josephus  then 
passes  on  to  the  story  of  Nehemiah,  which  he  gives  in  greatly 
abridged  form.  After  narrating  how  the  building  of  the  wall 
was  finished,  he  proceeds  (xi,  180  f.):  to,  jxkv  ovv  eOvr)  tu  iv  ttj 
1.vpia  ....  i8v(T(f)6pei.  (=Neh.  G:16 — end).  Nee/tm?  Se  ttjv 
TToXiv  opSiv  oXtyavOpcoTTovfxevijv  (=  Neh.  7:4,  /cal  6  Xab'i  oX.t'709  iv 
avTr)^TOv<i  lepel^  re  koI  Aevha^  irapeKoXeaev  ttjv  ■x^copav  iKXnr6vTa<i 
fieTcXdelv  €t<?  Tr)v  ttoXlv  koI  jxevuv  iv  avTjj'  (Neh.  11:1,  10-23; 
12:1-26)  ....  TOV  re  'yecopyovvTa  Xaov  Ta<;  8eKdTa<;  Toiv  KapirSiv 
iKeXevae  ^e'peiv  et?  'lepocroXu/ia,  iva  Tpe(f)e(rdaL  SirjveKci)^  e^ovTC^  ol 
UpeU  Koi  AevLTai  /xrj  KaTaXeiirwai  Tr)v  6pi]crK€iav  (Neh.  12:44; 
13:10-12). 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted,  in  view  of  all  this — and  with  nothing 
to  point  to  the  contrary  conclusion — that  the  two  chapters,  Neh. 
9  and  10,  stood  at  the  end  of  the  book  of  Ezra  in  the  B  edition. 

•5  To  say  nothing  of  the  ual  (iTref  'EfSpat  with  which  9:6  begins  in  the  Greek  version  I 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras  33 

Both  editions,  A  and  B,  must  have  continued  in  use  for  a  con- 
siderable time.  The  extent  to  which  Edition  B  was  used  may  be 
judged  from  the  fact  that  it  was  the  one  from  which  the  old 
Greek  version  was  made,  as  well  as  the  one  used  by  Josephus 
in  writing  his  history  of  the  Jews;'^  while  for  a  witness  to  the 
prestige  of  Edition  A  we  have  the  fact  that  it  was  ultimately 
taken  as  the  basis  of  the  recension  which  alone  was  adopted  for 
the  "official"  Hebrew  Bible. 

It  deserves  especially  to  be  emphasized  that  the  Story  of  the 
Three  Youths  was  present  in  both  of  the  current  forms  of  the 
history.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  there 
was  probably  no  version  of  the  Chronicler's  book  in 
existence  which  did  not  contain  this  Story.  Certain  it 
is,  at  any  rate,  that  those  who  made  the  recension  now  repre- 
sented by  our  massoretic  text  knew  of  no  such  form  already 
existing,  but  were  obliged  to  resort  to  excision. 

The  trouble  caused  in  the  Jewish  world  by  this  Levitical  His- 
tory of  Israel,  in  its  two  incongruous  editions,  could  be  imagined 
even  if  we  had  no  direct  proof  of  it.  As  time  went  on,  and  the 
lingering  traditional  knowledge  of  the  Persian  period  dwindled 
and  disappeared,  the  Chronicler's  compilation  stood  out  con- 
spicuously as  the  one  document  dealing  with  the  history  of  the 
Jews  in  this  important  time.  It  seems  to  have  been  little  used 
at  first,  and  when  at  last  it  became  generally  known  it  was  looked 
upon  with  suspicion  (witness  its  position  in  the  Jewish  canon, 
and  its  rejection  from  the  Syriac  Bible,  to  say  nothing  of  other 
indications),  but  its  ultimate  recognition  was  inevitable.  The 
final  test  came,  of  course,  when  the  idea  of  a  definite  "canon" 
of  divinely  inspired  scripture  was  first  developed;  namely,  about 
the  beginning  of  the  second  century  a.  d.  The  Jewish  rabbis 
were  obliged  to  meet  squarely  the  question  whether  they  should 
accept  this  book  or  reject  it.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was  the  source, 
and  the  indispensable  support,  of  certain  theories  which  had  come 
to  be  implicitly  believed  and  cherished,  especially  in  ecclesiastical 
circles;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  obviously  an  untrustworthy 
guide.  Anyone  could  see  that  the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths 
was  incongruous  with  its  surroundings,  and  it  needed  no  unusual 
acumen  to  see  that  it  was  in  fact  an  interpolation.  Such  naive 
attempts  to  cut  the  knot  as  that  of  Josephus,  who  substitutes 

16  And  Josephus,  as  we  know,  was  a  writer  who  would  have  been  careful  to  employ  the 
orthodox  recension. 


34  Ezra  Studies 

"Cambyses"  for  the  Artaxerxes  of  I  Esdr.  2:15  fP.,  could  only  do 
more  harm  than  good.  And  the  case  with  the  history  of  the  two 
great  leaders,  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  was  no  better,  for  two  versions, 
incompatible  with  each  other,  were  in  circulation.  The  situation 
was  an  intolerable  one,  and  could  be  ended  only  in  one  way, 
namely,  by  a  new  recension. 

A  final  revision  was  accordingly  made,  and  was  oflBcially 
adopted.  The  Story  of  the  Youths  was  cut  out  bodily  from  the 
book,  and  care  was  taken  that  it  should  never  again  appear  in  the 
Jewish  sacred  writings.  But  unfortunately,  in  the  excision  of  the 
Story,  a  part  of  the  Chronicler'' s  original  narrative  was  cut  out 
icith  it.  The  cause  of  this  accident  is  easy  to  see.  The  expanded 
Story,  as  edited  by  the  interpolator,  did  not  end  with  I  Esdr. 
4:63,  but  extended  through  the  first  six  verses  of  chap.  5.  The 
interpolation  in  vs.  6,  supported  by  the  occurrence  of  the  name 
"Darius"  both  here  and  in  vs.  2,  left  the  revisers  no  alternative; 
the  knife  must  cut  between  vss.  6  and  7.  Upon  the  excision  of 
the  Story  followed  necessarily  the  restoration  of  the  Artaxerxes 
correspondence  to  its  proper  place. 

The  choice  between  the  two  versions  of  the  Ezra-Nehemiah 
story  must  have  caused  more  dijEEculty.  What  led  the  Jewish 
revisers  here  to  follow  Edition  A  rather  than  Edition  B  can  only 
be  a  matter  of  conjecture.  Possibly  some  external  evidence  show- 
ing that  the  order  of  chapters  in  the  former  was  older  than  that 
in  the  latter  was  still  in  existence.  But  it  is  perhaps  more  likely 
that  what  decided  the  matter  was  the  presence,  through 
interpolation,  of  Nehemiah's  name  in  the  three  doubtful 
chapters  (see  Neh.  8:9  and  10:1,  and  compare  the  date  in  1:1), 
an  interpolation  which  easily  (and  almost  inevitably)  took  place 
after  these  chapters  had  been  accidentally  transposed  into  the 
story  of  Nehemiah. 

So  much  for  the  origin  of  our  canonical  Ezra.  As  for  our 
First  Esdras,  it  is,  as  has  already  been  said,  the  one  surviving 
fragment  of  the  old  Greek  version  of  the  Chronicler's  history,  a 
version  which  was  simply  a  faithful  rendering  of  Edition  B,  and 
was  probably  made  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century  B.  0. 
The  accompanying  diagram  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  history  of 
the  two  recensions. 

The  extent  of  our  First  Esdras,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  add, 
is  due  simply  to  accident.     Probably  all  the  manuscripts,  Semitic 


Nature  and  Origin  of  First  Esdras 


35 


Chronicler's  History.    Hebrew- Aramaic. 
(250  B.  c,  or  later) 


Two  long  passages  transposed  from  Ezra  to  Nehemiah;  the 

first  by  accident,  the  second  as  a  necessary  result 

(Neh.  7:70—8:18  and  9:1—10:40) 


Story  of  the  Three  Youths 

(lEsdr.  3:1— 4:42). 

Aramaic 


(Kedactional  expansions  [I  Esdr.  4:43-47a,-  57-61]  and 

alterations.     Transposition  of  Ezra  4:6-24) 


I 
Edition  A 


Excision  of  the  Story;  together  with 
a  part  of  the  original  history, 
I  Esdr.  4:476-56;  4:62—5:6. 

(Beginning  of  second  century  a.  d.) 

Canonical  Ezra-Nehemiah 


Edition  B  (Neh.  7:73— 10:40  trans- 
posed to  end  of  Ezra) 


Ch-eek  translation  (before  middle 
of  second  century  b.  c.) 


First  Esdras 


36  Ezra  Studies 

or  Greek,  which  contained  any  other  version  than  the  official  one 
were  systematically  destroyed.  Just  as  the  old  Greek  version  of 
Daniel  narrowly  escaped  the  fate  which  befell  its  Semitic  original, 
being  saved  only  in  a  single  Greek  codex  and  a  secondary  version, 
so  this  portion  of  the  condemned  Esdras  recension  was  rescued 
by  a  lucky  chance.  There  was  only  one  such  fragment,  and  all 
of  our  "I  Esdras"  texts  and  translations  go  back  to  it.  It  prob- 
ably consisted  of  a  few  quires  plucked  out  of  the  middle  of  a 
codex.  The  first  page  of  the  rescued  fragment  began  with 
II  Chron.  35:1;  and  the  last  words  on  the  last  page  were  Kal 
iina-vvrix^rja-av,  which  in  this  version  had  been  the  first  words  of 
Neh.  8:13. 

And  it  is  certain,  finally,  that  the  manuscript  from  which  this 
piece  survived  was  Greek,  not  Semitic.  There  never  existed  a 
Hebrew-Aramaic  fragment  of  the  same  extent  as  our  First  Esdras. 
Conclusive  proof  of  this  statement  is  found  in  the  closing  words, 
for  in  the  Hebrew  text  Neh.  8:18  begins  with  ^yjjTl  DVm ,  not 
with  the  verb. 

Whether  accidentally  rescued  or  deliberately  excided,  it  is 
evident  that  this  fragment  was  not  altered  nor  edited  in  any  way 
by  those  who  first  preserved  it  by  itself.  No  attempt  was  made 
to  give  it  a  suitable  beginning,  nor  even  to  complete  the  obviously 
unfinished  sentence  with  which  it  ends."  In  every  library  of 
ancient  manuscripts  there  are  to  be  found  similar  fragments,  con- 
sisting generally  of  a  few  quires  surviving  from  codices  of  which 
the  remainder  has  been  lost;'*  fragments  almost  always  through 
accident,  but  sometimes  also  through  selection.  In  the  sense  in 
which  any  one  of  these  might  be  called  a  "book,"  First  Esdras 
may  be  given  that  designation,  but  in  no  other  sense. 

1'  Except  in  the  Lagarde  Greek  recension,  which  here,  as  in  some  other  places  (compare 
what  was  said  above  regarding  the  text  of  4:39)  has  been  deliberately  "revised." 

18 Compare,  for  example,  the  accidental  loss  of  the  first  part  of  the  Peshitto  version  of 
Tobit,  which  has  totally  disappeared. 


Ill 

THE  STOEY  OF  THE   THREE  YOUTHS 

(lEsdrasS:!— 4:42) 
I.      ORIGIN    OF    THE    STORY 

Among  the  most  interesting  surviving  specimens  of  old  Semi- 
tic literature  must  be  counted  the  story  of  the  three  young 
guardsmen  at  the  court  of  King  Darius,  and  their  contest  of  wits  in 
the  royal  audience  hall.  As  has  already  been  shown  (see  above, 
pp.  18-30),  this  narrative  was  originally  written  in  the  Aramaic 
language,  and  was  interpolated  in  the  Chronicler's  history  of 
Israel  by  an  unknown  hand,  probably  near  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century  b.  c.  The  main  questions  as  to  its  origin,  date, 
and  primitive  form,  and  the  class  of  literature  to  which  it  belongs, 
remain  to  be  answered.  It  is  now  generally  believed  that  this 
"story"  was  a  Jewish  composition,  a  "contribution  to  the  legend- 
ary history  of  the  Captivity  and  Return"  (Swete,  Introduction 
to  the  Old  Testament  in  Greek,  p.  266) ;  and  the  only  remark 
which  it  ordinarily  calls  forth  is  the  verdict  that  it  "is  unhistor- 
ical."  I  shall  try  to  show  in  the  following  pages  that  it  was 
originally  a  separate  composition,  a  bit  of  popular  wisdom-litera- 
ture complete  in  itself,  and  in  its  first  estate  having  nothing  to 
do  with  the  history  of  the  Jews;  that  it  was  composed  in  Pales- 
tine, probably  soon  after  300  b.  c.  ;  that  it  was  incorporated  entire 
in  the  Chronicler's  history,  and  has  been  preserved  in  what  is 
substantially  its  original  form. 

The  interpolator,  as  I  have  shown  (see  pp.  25-27),  gave  the 
story,  in  the  main,  as  he  found  it,  without  attempting  to  work  it 
over,  or  indeed  to  make  any  alteration  whatever  beyond  what  was 
absolutely  necessary.  The  beginning,  obviously,  was  left  un- 
touched. Up  to  the  end  of  4:  •42,  moreover,  there  is  not  a  clause, 
nor  even  a  word,  that  seems  to  be  secondary  or  editorial,  excepting 
of  course  the  manifest  gloss  in  4:13.  It  was  only  at  the  end, 
where  the  story  required  to  be  adapted  to  a  definite  place  in  Jewish 
history,  that  redactional  patches  were  necessary,  and  were  made. 
The  interpolator   himself  did  this  harmonistic   work;    and    one 

37 


38  Ezra  Studies 

necessary  feature  of  it  was  the  occasional  change  of  the  name 
"Cyrus,"  in  the  immediately  following  portion  of  the  Chronicler's 
history,  to  "Darius"  (above,  pp.  27  f.).  The  presence  of  the 
name  "Darius,"  in  fact,  was  an  indispensable  condition  of  the  in- 
sertion of  the  story,  Zerubbabel  being  the  hero.  The  question 
therefore  arises  at  once,  whether  the  interpolator  may  not  himself 
have  introduced  the  name  throughout  the  whole  story.  We 
know  with  certainty  that  according  to  his  representation  the  king 
who  sent  Zerubbabel  and  his  company  to  Jerusalem  was  Darius 
II  Nothus;'  but  it  is  quite  another  question,  whom  the  author  of 

1  It  is  strango  that  the  question  of  the  chronological  order  of  the  Persian  kings  accord- 
ing to  the  attested  Jewish  tradition  should  have  made,  and  should  still  be  making,  so  much 
trouble  among  scholars.  See  for  example  Meyer,  Entstehung  des  Judenthums,  p.  14;  Well- 
hausen.  Israelifische  und  JUdische  GeschicMe^',  p.  171,  note;  Bertholet,  Eira  und  Nehemia, 
p.  13,  middle.  The  simple  fact  is  this,  that  according  to  the  accepted  view  of  the  Jewish 
scholars  and  writers,  in  the  Greek  period  and  still  later,  a  kingdom  of  the  Medes  preceded 
that  of  the  Persians,  and  Darius  I  Hystaspis  was  the  monarch  of  this  Median  king- 
dom. Aside  from  this  one  important  error,  the  Jewish  writers  made  no  mistake  in  regard 
to  the  Persian  kings,  but  everywhere  preserved  the  true  order. 

As  for  the  kingdom  of  the  Medes,  it  is  the  one  briefly  referred  to  in  Dan.  2:;!9  and  7:5, 
as  scholars  are  generally  agreed.  Neither  the  author  (or  authors)  of  Daniel  nor  any  of  the 
other  Jewish  writers  shows  any  interest  in  this  Median  power  or  its  history.  The  duration 
of  its  rule  over  Babylonia  was  believed  to  have  been  very  brief;  to  have  included,  in  fact, 
the  reign  of  only  one  king.  We  read  in  Dan.  5:30,  6:1,  that  upon  the  death  of  the  last  Baby- 
lonian king,  Belshazzar,  his  kingdom  was  taken  by  Darius  '''the  Mede;^''  and  we  are  told  with 
equal  distinctness  in  6: 29,  cf.  9:1, 10:1,  11:1,  that  this  Darius  was  immediately  succeeded  by 
Cyrus,  the  first  king  of  the  Persians.  (I  do  not  believe  that  the  original  text  of  Dan.  9:1 
called  this  Darius  the  "son  of  A  h  a  s  u  e  r  u  s."  The  name  TUITlTUnX  is  due  to  some  copyist, 
who  substituted  a  well-known  name  for  the  unknown,  and  probably  corrupt,  form  which  lay 
before  him.  In  Josephus,  the  name  is  "Astyages" — cf.  Theodotion's  Bel  and  the  Dragon, 
vs.  1  (original  reading  possibly  "  Darius,  son  o/ Astyages  '"?).  One  might  perhaps  conjecture 
"Cyaxares"  (Hu  wahS  a  t  ara  ),  for  this  blunder  would  at  least  have  involved  no  anachro- 
nism. Cyaxares  flourished  about  (500  B.C.,  and  this  Darius  came  to  the  throne  "about  sixty-two 
years  of  age"  (Dan.  6: 1).  But  perhaps  we  need  not  take  the  writer's  chronology  so  seriously. 
I  suppose  it  is  possible  that  the  author,  or  authors,  of  these  chapters  had  never  heard  the 
name  of  Hystaspes.)  That  is,  in  the  Jewish  tradition  represented  by  the  author  of  Daniel 
(who  was  a  man  of  some  learning),  Darius  I  Hystaspis  was  put  immediately  before  Cyrus 
instead  of  immediately  after  him.  The  author  of  Daniel  would  have  begun  his  list  of 
Persian  kings  thus :    Cyrus,  Xerxes,  Artaxerxes  I  Longimauus,  Darius  II  Nothus,  etc. 

TheChronicler's  history  of  Israel  represents  precisely  the  same  view  of  the  royal  suc- 
cession, and,  accordingly,  of  a  brief  Median  rule  preceding  the  Persian.  It  is  perfectly 
plain  from  Ezra  4  :l-7  that  his  list  of  the  Persian  kings  began  in  the  same  way  as  did  that  of 
the  author  of  Daniel.  The  Chronicler  makes  no  mention  of  Darius  Hystaspis,  "The  Mede," 
before  Cyrus,  for  the  same  reason  that  he  fails  further  on  to  include  Artaxerxes  III  Ochus, 
namely,  because  these  kings  (as  he  supposed)  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  history  of  the  Jews. 
But  aside  from  this  one  transposition  of  Cyrus  and  Darius— the  same  which  is  made  in, 
Daniel— his  succession  of  Persian  kings,  as  given  in  Ezr.-Neh.,  is  the  correct  one.  According 
to  his  view,  Zerubbabel  and  his  companions  finished  the  temple  under  Darius  Nothus;  and 
the  Artaxerxes  who  befriended  Ezra  and  (afterward)  Nehemiah  was  Artaxerxes  Mnemon. 

Again,  the  Chronicler's  Aramaic  source  represents  the  selfsame  historical  tradition. 
The  author  of  this  story  of  the  building  of  the  temple  of  course  makes  no  mention  of  the 
Median  king  who  preceded  (^yrus,  nor  does  he  have  occasion  to  mention  Xerxes;  but  he 
leaves  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  fact  that,  in  his  belief,  the  temple  was  finished  in  the  time  of 
the  Darius  whose  reign  followed  that  of  Artaxerxes  I. 

The  textual  tradition,  it  should  be  observed,  perpetuates  this  view  of  the  two  kings 
named  Artaxerxes.  The  name  of  the  enemy  of  the  Jews,  who  is  mentioned  in  Ezra  4,  is  in- 
variably written  with  TU ;  the  name  of  the  friend  of  the  Jews,  mentioned  in  Ezra  7  f.  and 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  39 

the  Story  of  the  Youths  intended  by  his  "Darius,"  or  indeed, 
whether  he  used  this  name  at  all.  What,  then,  is  the  historical 
setting  of  the  story,  and  who  is  the  "king"  at  whose  palace  the 
scene  is  laid? 

It  is,  of  course,  beyond  question  that  the  story  was  originally 
told  of  a  king,  not  of  a  satrap,  governor,  or  other  high  official. 
It  is  almost  equally  certain  that  the  scene  was  laid  in  Persia. 
From  the  beginning  of  the  story  to  its  end,  the  Persian  kingdom 
and  its  capital  are  plainly  in  the  thought  of  the  writer.  The 
allusions  are  too  many  and  too  deeply  imbedded  in  the  structure 
of  the  story  to  be  regarded  merely  as  the  result  of  an  editorial 
revision  (see,  for  example,  3:1,  2,  9,  14).  We  must  conclude 
that  when  the  story  was  originally  composed  the  narrator  intended 
to  describe  a  scene  at  the  court  of  one  of  the  Achaemenids. 
Observe  also  how  the  interpolator  takes  it  for  granted  that  the 
event  described  took  place  in  the  Persian  capital.  If  he  were 
giving  the  tale  a  new  setting,  he  would  certainly  be  explicit  as  to 
the  name  of  the  city;  but  as  it  is,  he  plainly  assumes  that  every 
reader  would  know  that  Susa  was  intended.  Thus,  in  4:57:  "And 
he  (Darius)  sent  away  all  the  vessels  ivhich  Cyrus  had  brought^ 
from  Babylon  (i.  e.,  to  Susa);''^  and  again,  in  verse  61:  "So  he 
(the  youth)  took  the  letters,  and  came  forth  [from  Susa)  to 
Babylon.'' 

If  no  other  evidence  were  to  be  had,  it  would  still  remain 
doubtful  whether  the  name  "Darius"  is  also  original,  or  whether 
it  is  to  be  ascribed  to  a  later  hand.  But  fortunately,  we  have  the 
evidence  which  is  needed.  Thanks  to  that  most  important  verse, 
4:29,  we  are  able  to  determine  which  king  is  intended,  and  the 

Neh.  2,  is  invariably  written  with  Q.  The  Darius  who  came  between  these  two  kings  was  of 
course  Darius  Nothus. 

And  finally,  the  interpolator  of  the  Story  of  the  Youths  shared  the  view  of  the  Chroni-. 
cler,  the  author  of  Daniel,  and  the  textual  tradition  of  Ezr.-Neh.  The  fact  that  he  trans- 
posed the  account  of  the  correspondence  in  the  reigns  of  Xerxes  and  Artaxerxes,  Ezr.  4:6-24, 
to  the  place  which  it  occupies  in  I  Esdr.  is  conclusive  evidence  of  this.  Like  the  other  Jew- 
ish writers  of  his  time,  he  believed  that  the  Darius  under  whom  Zerubbabel  finished  the 
building  of  the  temple  was  Darius  Notlius;  and.  according  to  him,  it  was  at  or  very  near 
the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  this  same  king  that  the  three  youths  held  their  contest  at  the 
Persian  court.  According  to  his  version  of  the  history,  Zerubbabel  was  still  a  youth  at  the 
time  of  the  completion  of  the  temple ;  while  according  to  the  Chronicler's  version  he  was  an 
old  man  at  that  time  (though  in  all  probability  the  Chronicler  supposed  the  reigns  of  Xerxes 
and  Artaxerxes  I  to  have  been  brief  ones). 

It  is  true  that  our  modern  historians  may  reasonably  be  in  doubt  as  to  the  date 
of  the  completion  of  the  temple;  but  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  there  is  justification  for 
doubt,  in  the  face  of  this  evidence,  as  to  what  view  the  old  Jewish  narrators  held. 

2  The  Greek  translator's  fX">pKTfv  is  probably  a  mistaken  rendering,  both  here  and  in 
verse  44 ;  see  the  notes. 


40  Ezra  Studies 

approximate  date  of  the  story.  According  to  the  text  ordinarily 
used,  the  passage  reads  thus:^ 

/  saw  Ajoama  the  daughter  of  Bartakes,  ....  the  concubine  of 
the  king,  sitting  at  the  king's  right  hand;  I  saw  her  snatch  the  crown 
from  his  head,  and  place  it  upon  her  oicn;  with  her  left  hand  she 
slapped  the  king.  In  spite  of  all  this,  the  king  gazed  upon  her  with 
open  mouth. 

It  is  obvious  that  we  have  here  the  key  to  the  date  and  original 
home  of  the  story.  The  proper  name  Apama,  at  least,  has  been 
correctly  transmitted.  It  is  a  very  well-known  name,  and  yet  not 
one  that  would  have  been  chosen  at  random  or  taken  as  typical. 
The  writer  of  the  story  had  a  real  personage  in  mind  at  this  point. 
The  fact  that  the  name  of  t-he  girl's  father  is  appended  adds  to  the 
certainty  of  this  conclusion,  though  the  latter  name  is  so  badly 
mutilated  as  to  seem  almost  hopeless. 

Among  all  the  women  named  Apama  who  are  known  to  us, 
there  are  only  two  who  need  to  be  taken  into  account.  The  prime 
requisite  is  that  the  girl  should  have  been  a  concubine,  or  at  least 
a  favorite,*  of  one  of  the  Persian  kings.  The  two  who  most  nearly 
meet  the  requirements  are  (1)  Apama,  the  daughter  of  the  satrap 
Artabazos  III,  who  was  the  son  of  the  satrap  Pharnabazos  II; 
and  (2)  Apama,  the  daughter  of  the  Bactrian  satrap  Spitamenes, 
or  Pithamenes.  These  two  Apamas  were  the  most  celebrated  of 
all  who  bore  the  name,  and  both  made  their  first  appearance  in 
history  at  the  court  of  the  Persian  king.  The  king,  moreover, 
was  Darius  III  Codomannus,  and  this  fact  is  another  cor- 
roborating element.  The  coincidence  is  too  far-reaching  to  be 
an  accident;  the  natural  conclusion  is  that  the  king  originally 
intended  in  this  story  was  Darius  III.  All  that  we  know  of  the 
two  Apamas,  during  their  early  life  in  Persia,  is  contained  in  the 
well-known  story  of  the  great  feast  at  Susa,  given  by  Alexander 
to  his  generals  after  the  conquest  of  Persia.  At  this  feast,  accord- 
ing to  the  historians,  Alexander  gave  to  the  foremost  of  his  gen- 
erals wives  from  the  Persian  court.  Apama,  daughter  of  Spita- 
menes (or,  as  some  authorities  have,  Pithamenes),  was  given  to 
Seleucus  Nicator,  the  first  of  the  Syrian  line  of  monarchs;  and 
Apama,  daughter  of  Artabazos,  was  given  to  Ptolemy  Lagi,  the 
first  of  the  Egyptian  kings.     Thus  Arrian,  Anabasis,  vii,  4,  6, 

3  Tho  Greek  text,  with  its  various  readings,  will  be  given  below  and  discussed. 
♦  We  are  loft  in  some  uncertainty  by  the  Greek  naKKaKri  here,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  transla- 
tion and  wo  cannot  bo  sure  what  Aramaic  word  was  used  in  the  original. 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  41 

narrating  the  distribution  of  wives:  leXevKO)  8e  rrjv  ^TnTa/xe'vov^ 
Tov  BuKrpiov  iralSa.  In  speaking  [ihid.)  of  the  wife  given  to 
Ptolemy  Lagi,  he  calls  her  the  daughter  of  Artabazos,  but  uses 
the  native  name  'ApTaKcifia.^  Plutarch,  Eumcnes,  §1,  gives  the 
name  correctly  [UToXefxato)  fiev  'Kirdfiav) ,  and  says  that  Artabazos 
was  her  father.  Strabo,  Geographica,  xii,  8,  15,  confuses  the  two 
Apamas,  saying  that  Apama,  the  daughter  of  Artabazos  was  given 
in  marriage  to  Seleucus  Nicator.''  The  statement  regarding  Seleu- 
cus  and  his  wife  which  is  given  by  John  Malalas,  Clironoiiraphia, 
viii  (Migne,  Vol.  XCVII,  col.  312),  is  perhaps  worth  quoting: 

6  Se  avro'i  SeXey/co?  6  NiKarcop  eXa^e  jvvaiKa  ev  tm  TroXefio)  cltto 
HdpOcov  ovofiari ' Kirdfiav  irapOevov  rjvTtva  iiri^pev  aveXcov  tov  irarepa 
avTY}^  UidafjLevrjv,  ovra  arpaTtjybv  UdpOcov  /xeyav.  'A<^'  f/9  'ATrayua? 
ecrx^v  6  avTO'i  'EeXevKOf  Ovyarepa';  hvo^  'ATrdfiav  kuI  Aao8iKr)v. 

There  is  nothing  in  our  extra-biblical  sources  to  indicate  that 
either  the  daughter  of  Artabazos  or  the  daughter  of  Spitamenes 
had  been,  or  was  supposed  to  have  been,  a  concubine  of  Darius 
Codomannus.  This,  however,  is  a  fact  of  no  importance.  In 
I  Esdr.  4:  29  we  are  dealing,  in  any  case,  with  a  popular  tale,  the 
original  purpose  of  which  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  Court 
gossip  and  the  story-tellers  of  the  common  people  alike  love  to 
play  with  such  details  as  these,  and  to  invent  them,  with  or  with- 
out malice  prepense,  especially  when  the  early  life  of  the  royal 
personage  was  (as  in  this  instance)  a  romantic  one,  and  had  been 
lived  in  a  foreign  land.  And  Alexander  might  well  have  been 
.represented  as  finding  extraordinary  treasures  in  the  harem  of 
Darius.  It  may  be  that  the  author  of  the  Story  of  the  Youths 
himself  added  this  touch  of  local  interest  to  the  scene  he  was 
painting,  representing  the  celebrated  queen  of  his  land  as  having 
been,  in  her  girlhood,  a  favorite  of  the  great  Persian  king.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  we  need  waste  no  more  thought  on  the  iraXXaKi]  of 
I  Esdras  than  we  do  on  the  irapd€vo<i  of  Malalas,  in  the  passage 
above  quoted.  Beyond  question,  the  evidence  within  reach  points 
to  the  general  conclusions  already  stated:  (1)  the  "Darius" 
of  our  story  is,  in  any  case,  Darius  III;  (2)  for  the 
heroine  of  the  verse  4:29,  we  must  look  either  to 
Egypt  or  to  Antioch. 

5  See  Wilckeu,  in  Pauly's  Keal-Encyclopiidie,  s.  v.  "  Apama." 

'iNOldeke,  Gfitt.  Gel.  Anzeifjen,  1884,  p.  295,  accepted  the  statement  of  Strabo,  and  was 
followed  in  this  by  Marquart,  Fundamenta  israelit.  iindJUd.  Geschichte,  pp.  65  f.  But  the 
evidence  inclines  decidedly  the  other  way  (so  also  Wilcken,  in  Pauly,  loc.  cit.). 


42  Ezra  Studies 

It  is  not  altogether  easy  to  decide  between  the  two  Apamas; 
fortunately,  the  decision  at  this  point  need  not  greatly  atfect  our 
conclusion  as  to  the  original  home  of  the  story.  If  the  daughter 
of  Artabazos  and  wife  of  Ptolemy  is  meant,  then  it  is  pretty  cer- 
tain that  the  tale  was  composed  either  in  Egypt  or  in  Palestine, 
somewhere  near  300  b.  c.  ;  for  such  an  allusion  to  the  foreign-born 
queen  could  only  have  been  made  during  her  lifetime  or  a  short 
time  after  her  death.  If  the  other  Apama,  the  daughter  of  Spita- 
menes  and  wife  of  Seleucus,  was  intended,  the  natural  conclusion 
would  be  that  the  story  was  written  in  Syria,  and  perhaps  most 
likely  in  northern  Syria,  at  about  the  same  date.  Of  local  "color," or 
allusion,  to  connect  the  narrative  with  either  of  the  two  kingdoms, 
there  is  not  a  particle.  All  the  setting  is  distinctly  Persian, 
as  has  already  been  remarked,  and  the  Persian  capital  is  the  only 
scene  which  the  story  suggests.'  As  for  the  use  of  the  Aramaic 
language,  we  know  that  it  was  the  reigning  tongue  at  this  time, 
from  the  borders  of  Persia  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  that  it  was 
also  used  to  some  extent  in  Egypt,  where  the  Semitic  element  of  the 
population  was  considerable.  Still,  a  document  of  this  sort, 
composed  in  Egypt  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  b.  c, 
would  probably  have  been  composed  in  Greek  ;  in  Syria  or  Pales- 
tine, on  the  contrary,  Aramaic  would  have  been  the  natural  vehicle. 
So  far  as  general  probability  is  concerned,  then,  the  matter  stands 
thus:  if  our  "Apama"  is  the  Egyptian  queen,  then  the  story  is 
most  likely  to  have  been  written  in  Palestine;  if  the  wife  of 
Seleucus  is  intended,  then  it  probably  originated  somewhere  in 
central  or  northern  Syria. 

The  main  hope  of  reaching  a  satisfactory  decision  lies  in  the 
names  which  are  given  in  4:29.  These,  as  has  already  been 
remarked,  are  presumably  corrupt  in  the  forms  which  have  reached 
us.  Foreign  proper  names  in  a  Semitic  text  are  easily  and  rapidly 
changed.  The  transliteration  into  Greek  is  apt  to  involve  some 
additional  loss,  and  the  corruption  is  increased  still  further  by 
co})yists,  es[)ecially  when,  as  in  this  case,  the  original  is  no  longer 
to  be  had  for  reference.  All  our  texts  and  versions  of  I  Esdras 
are  derived  as  was  shown  above  (p.  36),  from  the  fragment  of  a 
single  faulty  Greek  codex.  It  is  only  necessary  to  recollect  the 
large  number  of  almost  incredibly  distorted  proper  names  else- 

'  Marquart,  op.  cit.,  j).  66,  attempts  to  show  that  the  palace  in  Antioch  was  the  original 
scene,  but  fails  conspicuously  at  every  point. 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  43 

where  in  this  book,  in  order  to  see  what  we  must  be  prepared  to 
find  here.  And,  in  fact,  our  traditional  texts  of  4:  29  do  not  con- 
tain any  form  closely  resembling  either  Artabazos  or  Spitamenes. 
In  the  ordinary  text  of  the  Egyptian  recension,  represented  by 
the  uncials  A,  B,  and  their  fellows,  the  Syro-Hexaplar  version, 
the  Ethiopic,  and  other  less  important  witnesses,  the  girl  Apama 
is  called  the  daughter  of  "Bartakes"  (rrjv  dvyarepa  BapraKov). 
We  seem  to  have  conclusive  evidence,  however,  that  this  was  not 
the  reading  of  the  primal  Greek  fragment  out  of  which  "First 
Esdras"  grew.  In  the  Syro-Palestinian  recension,  found  in 
the  Lagarde  text  and  the  Latin,  we  read  Ba^aKov,  or  Be^aKov, 
Lat.  Bczacisj  and  as  this  reading  is  confirmed  by  the  wit- 
ness of  Josephus,  Antt.  xi,  3,  5,  tov  ^aaiXea  ....  elhov  noTe 
VTTO  rrj<i  'PajSe^uKov  rod  Sefiaaiov  TratSo?  'ATra'/x?;?  ....  paTTi- 
^ofievov,  we  must  accept  it  as  the  original  reading  of  our  I  Esdras 
fragment.  For,  (1)  it  is  certain  that  all  our  I  Esdras  texts  were 
derived  from  the  one  fragment;  (2)  Josephus,  though  he  followed 
a  Greek  text  in  Ezr.-Neh.,  as  elsewhere,  did  7iot  have  before  him 
the  mutilated  scrap,  "I  Esdras,"  but  a  complete  translation  of  the 
Chronicler's  book;  and  (3)  it  is  certain  that  no  I  Esdras  text  was 
influenced  here  by  Josephus.  The  Syrian  text  of  4:  29  is  thus  the 
original,  so  far  as  I  Esdras  is  concerned,  reading  as  follows: 

idecopovv  avTov  koL  'A7rdfij]v  rrjv  dvyarepa  Ba^aKov  rod  davfiaa- 
rov,  ri]v  iraWaicr^v  rov  ^aaiXeco^,  Kadrjfxevijv  e«  Se^tcov  rov  jSacn- 
Xeco<;,  Kre. 

From  the  form  of  the  name  given  here,  the  other  forms  were 
derived,  through  the  usual  accidents  of  transmission.  In  the 
copying  of  cursive  manuscripts  the  spelling  BapraKov  arose,  prob- 
ably through  an  intermediate  BaraKov.  The  prefixed  syllable  in 
the  reading  of  Josephus,  Fa^e^aKov,^  is  merely  the  result  of  a  very 
ordinary  copyist's  error,  having  its  origin  in  the  [dvjare  jpa^e^aKov 
of  the  Greek  text  which  was  Josephus'  only  source.'' 

s  A  good  deal  of  ingenuity  has  been  wasted  on  these  names.  Fritzsche  says  of  the  form 
Rabezakes  in  Josephus,  "  das  wftro  HpTC^'l"  Ball,  in  the  Variorum  Apocrypha,  cites  the 
Syriac,  "Aphuma,  daughter  of  ....  rabba  Artak,"  and  remarks  that  the  Greek  Burtak-es 
may  be  a  corruption  of  the  latter.  Marquart,  Fuiidamente  israelit,  u.  jild.  Geschichte, 
pp.  6.5  f..  seems  to  me  to  heap  one  improbability  upon  another  in  the  attempt  to  explain  the 
names  in  the  verse.    Regarding  the  Syriac  "  Artak,"  see  below. 

'Notice  that  a  blunder  of  exactly  the  same  nature  had  found  a  place  in  the  (iroek  text, 
belonging  to  the  other  (Egyptian)  recension,  which  was  translated  by  Paul  of  Telia.  [Ovya- 
Te]pa/3apTa<cou  resulted  in  Pa/3apTOKov,  wliich  the  Syr. -Hex.  reproduces  by  ■  n  ^;j  j.^^  _  In 
view  of  all  the  proper  names  and  titles  beginning  with  Rab-,  it  is  no  wonder  that  this 
mistake  should  have  been  made  in  more  than  one  place. 


44  Ezra  Studies 

We  are  certainly  justified,  under  the  circumstances,  in  connect- 
ing Ba^a/c-  with  'A/araySa^o?,  as  e.  g,,  Marquart  [loc.  cit.)  has 
done.  If  we  can  suppose  the  original  form  of  the  name  to  have 
been  Artahdzak  (Marquart),  the  problem  is  at  once  made  easy, 
for  the  hypothesis  of  a  very  ordinary  sort  of  haplography  in  the 
original  Aramaic  text,  by  which  pT3[mi<]  mn ,  "the  daughter 
of  Artabazos,"  became  pT^  IT^n ,  rr^v  Ovyarepa  Ba^aKov,  is  all 
that  is  necessary. 

But  there  is  still  another  point  at  which  the  text  of  this  verse  in 
I  Esdras  is  unsatisfactory.  The  tov  davfjiaarov  must  conceal  a 
proper  name,  for  the  adjective  would  be  altogether  out  of  place 
either  in  Aramaic  or  in  Greek.  If  a  name  originally  stood  here, 
it  was  presumably  that  of  the  grandfather  of  Apama ;  and  in  the 
text  of  Josephus  we  do,  indeed,  have  such  a  name,  rod  %e(xaaiov. 
It  is  true  that  this  does  not  appear  to  be  a  very  desirable  acquisi- 
tion, inasmuch  as  it  has  seemed  probable,  since  the  researches  of 
Noldeke,  that  the  father  of  Artabazos  III  was  the  satrap  Pharna- 
bazos  II;  still,  it  is  not  hard  to  believe  that  the  narrator  of 
this  tale  could  have  been  mistaken  in  such  a  particular;  and  as 
@a/j,d(no<i  occurs  in  Herodotus  (vii,  194)  as  a  Persian  name, 
and  this  is  the  very  form  from  which  the  other  readings  ( (S)e/Ltacri09, 
davixdaco<i,  Oavjxaajo'i)  are  most  easily  derived,  we  shall  probably 
do  well  to  retain  it. 

The  conclusion  is,  that  the  heroine  of  I  Esdr.  4:  29  was  Apama, 
the  daughter  of  Artabazos  ("son  of  Thamasios"  ?),  and  that  the 
Story  of  the  Youths  was  written  probably  while  she  was  still 
living  as  queen  of  Egypt  and  Palestine,  but  possibly  in  the  next 
following  generation.  The  home  of  the  story  was  Palestine, 
where  the  connection  with  Egypt  was  then  very  close,  and  where 
the  Aramaic  language  was  commonly  employed,  as  we  know,  for 
compositions  of  this  nature.  Other  minor  indications,  of  very 
little  weight  in  themselves,  seem  to  me  to  point  in  the  same  direc- 
tion: the  freedom  with  which  the  writer  uses  the  queen's  name; 
his  uncertainty  (?)  as  to  the  name  of  her  grandfather;  and  the 
fact  that  the  first  appearance  of  the  story  of  which  we  have  knowl- 
edge was  in  Judea.  At  the  time  when  it  was  inserted  in  the 
Chronicler's  narrative  of  the  Jews  (probably  in  the  early  part  of 
the  second  century  b.  o.),  Palestine  was  no  longer  under  Egyptian 
rule,  and  queen  Apama  and  her  history  were  already  forgotten. 

It  has  already  been  observed  (above,  pp.  25  f . )  that  the  original 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  45 

and  unexpanded  Story  of  the  Youths  does  not  extend  beyond  4:42 
in  our  book.  It  is  complete  as  we  have  it;  even  at  the  end  it  does 
not  appear  that  anything  is  missing;  on  this  point  see  further 
below.  There  is  no  likelihood  that  it  formed  a  part  of  a  larger 
work;  as  it  stands,  it  is  a  carefully  planned  and  executed  whole, 
and  quite  sufiicient  unto  itself.  Much  might  be  written  as  to  its 
literary  character  and  qualities,  for  it  is  an  admirable  composition, 
but  here  there  is  space  only  for  a  few  general  observations. 

The  scene  of  the  story  is  laid  in  Susa,  shortly  before  the  advent 
of  Alexander,  and  it  thus  belongs  to  the  great  group  of  legends 
which  attached  themselves  to  this  turning-point  in  the  history  of 
the  East.  The  description  of  the  king's  surpassing  power  and 
glory  is  that  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the  tales  belonging  to 
the  "Alexander  cycle."  The  narrators  loved  to  represent  the 
last  Darius  as  the  richest  and  most  glorious  of  his  line.  This  is 
•exactly  what  was  done,  for  example,  in  Dan.  11:2,  a  verse  which 
is  valuable  as  giving  us  the  popular  Palestinian  view  of  Darius 
Codomannus:  "And  now  I  will  show  thee  the  truth.  Behold, 
there  will  arise  yet  three  kings  in  Persia,  but  the  fourth  will  be 
far  richer  than  all  the  others ;  and  when  he  has  become  mighty  in 
his  riches,  the  Lord  of  AlP"  will  raise  up  the  kingdom  of  Yawan" 
(i.  e.,  the  Seleucid  kingdom,  in  the  place  of  the  kingdom  of  Persia) . 

There  is  nothing  to  show  that  the  story  originated  in  Jewish 
circles.  Against  a  possible  Jewish  origin  speaks  the  fact  that  no 
mention  is  made  of  the  Jews  or  their  institutions,  from  the  begin- 
ning up  to  4:42,  which  is  at  all  events  the  last  verse  of  the  story 
in  its  original  form  which  has  reached  us."  Moreover,  the  religious 
element  is  almost  entirely  lacking,  although  the  writer's  main 
theme  and  the  development  of  his  thought  were  such  that  we 
should  have  expected  him  at  least  to  introduce  the  mention  of 
God  before  finishing  his  hero's  discourse  on  the  mightiest  and 
best  of  all  things.  How  sorely  this  lack  was  felt  by  the  early 
translators  is  evident  from  the  way  in  which  they  have  introduced 
alterations  and  interpretations  in  the  endeavor  to  bring  in  the 

i«As  I  have  shown  elsewhere,  the  misBing  word  'yO  is  to  be  restored  before  bDH-  See 
my  article,  "  Yawan  and  Hellas  as  designations  of  the  Seleucid  Empire,"  JAOS,  XXV,  310 f. 

I'The  fact  that  in  4:13  the  words  "this  was  Zerubbabol"  are  secondary  is  obvious 
enough.  Moreover,  it  is  a  poorly  executed  gloss,  for  this  one  name  could  not  suffice  to 
identify  the  man— hence  the  additions  which  we  find  in  the  Lagarde  Greek,  the  Syro- 
Hexaplar  version,  and  other  texts.  This  perhaps  makes  it  more  probable  tiiat  the  inter- 
polator himself  inserted  the  name  here;  he  had  no  need  to  be  more  explicit,  since  the  new 
context  of  the  story,  and  the  subsequent  gloss  in  5:6,  would  more  than  suffice  for  the 
identification. 


46  Ezra  Studies 

missing  religious  element  (see  4:35,  36,  41,  and  the  notes  on  these 
verses)."'  The  author  may  indeed  have  been  a  Jew  by  birth;  but 
this  writing  cannot  be  said  to  belong,  in  any  true  sense,  to  the 
Jewish  national  or  religious  literature;  and  the  probability  is 
strong  that  it  was  composed  by  a  gentile.  It  is  worthy  of  remark 
that  it  contains  no  allusion  to,  or  quotation  from,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. The  only  passage  which  could  be  taken  as  possibly  showing 
acquaintance  with  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  is  4:39;  but  the  resem- 
blance to  Deut,  10:17  is  not  striking,  and  is  probably  purely 
accidental. 

This  tale  of  the  youths  and  their  contest  belongs  to  the 
popular  "Wisdom  Literature"  of  Syria  and  Palestine, 
written  in  the  language  and  embodying  the  philosophy  and  the 
rhetoric  of  the  time.  There  were  doubtless  many  such  writings, 
and  it  is  by  a  stroke  of  rare  good  fortune  that  this  one  has  been 
preserved  to  our  day.  The  chief  concern  of  its  author,  it  is  plain 
to  see,  is  with  the  three  "wise  sentences"  which  were  uttered. 
He  has  no  personal  interest  in  the  "third  youth,"  who  gained  the 
victory,  and  neither  names  nor  describes  him.  He  does  not  care 
especially  for  the  narrative,  but  cuts  it  short  at  all  points.  His 
interest  is  in  the  three  discourses,  and  the  story  is  told  solely 
for  their  sake.  He  does,  indeed,  give  his  dialogue  a  striking  his- 
torical setting,  combining  the  legends  of  the  great  king,  and  his 
magnificent  court,  with  a  local  allusion  that  must  have  added 
considerably  to  the  interest  of  his  readers.  But  this  is  merely  his 
literary  art;  for  the  history  in  itself  he  had  no  concern. 

From  the  literary  point  of  view,  the  successive  discourses  of 
the  three  youths  are  highly  interesting.  It  is  evident  that  the 
form  in  which  they  are  cast  is  well  studied;  in  their  structure 
they  doubtless  follow  the  approved  models  of  their  time  and 
place.  It  is  a  pity  that  we  have  not  the  original  Aramaic,  so  that 
we  might  observe  the  tiner  points  of  style  and  phraseology.  The 
Greek,  to  be  sure,  is  a  close  translation,  and  so  far  as  the  frame- 
work of  the  discourses  and  the  construction  of  their  successive 
paragraphs  are  concerned,  we  are  nearly  as  well  off  as  we  could 
be  if  we  were  in  possession  of  the  original.  Neither  in  the  ideas 
expressed  nor  in  the  garb  in  which  they  are  clothed  is  there  any- 
thing that  could  properly  be  termed  "hellenistic."      There  is  no 

i^It  is  no  wonder  that  thoy  should  have  folt  that  this  element  must  be  present,  seeing 
that  tlie  speaker  of  these  immortal  words  was  no  other  than  the  great  leader  Zerubbabel, 
the  builder  of  the  tomplo ! 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  47 

evidence  of  the  influence  of  Greek  literature  or  philosophy.  In 
this  fact  we  may  perhaps  find  some  corroboration  of  the  conclu- 
sion reached  above  as  to  the  original  home  of  the  story;  for  a 
writer  of  such  conspicuous  ability  as  this  one,  composing  a  work 
of  this  nature  in  either  Egypt  or  northern  Syria,  after  the  begin- 
ning of  the  third  century  b.  C,  would  probably  have  given  evidence 
of  his  close  contact  with  Greek  thought. 

One  fact  of  especial  interest,  in  the  literary  structure  of  the  dis- 
courses proper,  is  the  use  of  the  line  of  three  beats.  Even 
under  the  disguise  of  the  Greek  translation,  this  can  be  recognized 
again  and  again,  all  through  the  composition,  from  3: 17  to  4:  40. 
Thus,  in  the  speech  of  the  first  youth,  3:20:"  nb  bib  IZ'J 
S"d  i^lb'Z  "^^21  Sb  I  ^T\y .  Or  in  the  speech  of  his  successor, 
the  succession  of  clauses  in  4:7  fP.:    Ti5<  |  "fbt:p    bz^p'Zb    ^'liH, 

7pn"i-  pn'j;:^b .  And  again,  verses  10  f . :  b-^^  |  "  j3  j<in  n"  ny^ 
lZly•2b^  I  b7S-::b  in  bi  bn^  i^b  \  -ni^in  ^^t::  i^ni  |  j2i^  sn-:; 

'{"CiXp  i^b  ^ri^by•^  \  nbn  J^n-^n:?.  The  third  youth  begins  his 
speech  by  saying  (4:14):  5<"^2::5<  ^221  |  HCb^Z  ^  J^bn  S^"Zj 
"pSim  ;  and  continues  in  the  following  verse  :  b-1  j  i^db'Z  mb'  'r'Zj 
nin  -naTJ  X:;n5<u1  |  5<'^^2  X:b-0  n  D>'.  This  is  certainly  not 
accidental;  and  the  conclusion  is,  that  the  "standard"  line  of 
three  beats,  which  appears  everywhere  in  the  Old  Testament,  is 
not  a  peculiar  property  of  the  Hebrew  language  or  of  the  Hebrew- 
Jewish  sacred  literature;  but  was  the  common  poetic  form,  for 
compositions  of  every  class,  in  Syria  and  Palestine,  whether  they 
were  written  in  Aramaic  or  in  Hebrew.  This  same  conclusion 
had  already  been  rendered  probable  by  some  passages  in  the 
Aramaic  part  of  Daniel,  to  be  sure. 

In  all  likelihood,  the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  was  popular 
in  its  own  land  while  it  still  existed  as  a  separate  Avork.  After  it 
became  a  part  of  a  religious  history,  it  found  its  way  into  other 
circles — and  at  the  same  time  its  original  character  and  its  true 
excellencies  were  lost  to  sight.  The  plainest  example  of  its  influ- 
ence on  a  subsequent  writing  is  found  in  the  book  of  Esther. 
The  literary  relationship  existing  between  the  two  has  often  been 
observed,  but  the  conclusion  is  generally  drawn,  that  I  Esdras, 
being  an  "apocry[)hal  book,"  must  have  been  the  borrower. 
Cornill,  EinJeitun(j\  p.  261,  says  that  I  Esdr.  3:  1,  2  is  a  palpable 

13  Of  course  the  following  spt-cimens,  cbosen  almost  at  random,  are  merely  intended  to 
give  a  general  idea  of  the  form  of  the  original.  Other  words  than  those  chosen  might  often 
have  been  used. 


48  Ezra  Studies 

imitation  ("eine  handgreifliche  Nachbildung")  of  Esth.  1:1-3. 
But  these  words  must  have  been  written  without  due  considera- 
tion, for  all  the  indications  point  just  the  other  way.  Imitation 
there  certainly  is.  The  book  of  Esther  opens  with  th«  very  same 
scene  with  which  the  Story  of  the  Youths  begins ;  a  royal  feast  in 
the  city  of  Susa,  given  to  all  the  officers  of  the  "  hundred  and 
twenty-seven  provinces,  from  India  to  Ethiopia."  Then  the  feast 
is  described;  but  what  had  been  told  in  our  Story  simply  and 
soberly  is  here  so  exaggerated  as  to  be  merely  grotesque.  The 
festival  in  I  Esdras  is  an  affair  of  a  single  day;  in  Esther,  the 
principal  entertainment  lasts  one  hundred  and  eighty  days.  Darius 
had  feasted  certain  classes  of  his  retainers,  which  are  named;  but 
"King  Ahasuerus"  makes  a  banquet  for  every  human  being  in 
Susa,  and  the  banquet  lasts  seven  days.  It  is  certainly  not  diffi- 
cult to  see  on  which  side  the  borrowing  lies. 

The  question  of  the  literary  relationship  between  I  Esdras  and 
Daniel  is  less  easily  settled.  There  is  probably  dependence,  and 
the  borrower  was  in  that  case  certainly  Daniel.  In  Dan.  6:2 
we  have  the  "hundred  and  twenty-seven'*  provinces"  of  Darius' 
kingdom;  and  in  the  following  verse  the  "three  presidents," 
apparently  the  same  who  are  mentioned  in  I  Esdr.  3:9  as  holding 
the  highest  position  of  authority  under  the  king.  The  coincident 
use  of  these  two  items  is  not  likely  to  be  a  mere  accident;'^  the 
natural  inference  is  that  there  was  literary  dependence  (so  also 
Marquart,  op.  c//.,  p.  68).  Internal  evidence  then  makes  it  certain 
that  the  borrowing,  if  borrowing  there  was,  was  by  Daniel.  The 
Darius  of  Dan.  6:1  ff.,  29,  is  "Darius  the  Jfec/e,"  who  was  put 
before  Cyrus;  from  him,  the  Story  of  the  Youths  was  as  remote 
as  possible.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  suppose  that  the  author 
of  Dan.  6  intended  his  king  to  be  the  same  as  the  one  who  is 
mentioned  in  I  Esdr.  3,  we  shall  be  driven  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  borrowing  took  place  before  the  Story  of  the  Youths 
became  incorporated  in  the  Chronicler's  history;  for 
in  our  I  Esdras,  the  king  who  befriended  Zerubbabel  came  not 
only  after  Cyrus,  but  also  after  Xerxes  and  Artaxerxes  I.  This 
conclusion  makes  no  difficulty  for  those  who  believe  — as  I  myself 
have  long  felt  certain  —  that  the  first  six  chapters  of  Daniel  are 

i*So  the  old  Greek  vorsioa,  which  hero,  as  often  elsewhere,  has  preserved  the  original 
readinK. 

i&Lagarde,  as  is  well  known,  expressed  the  opinion  (Mit/licilun(jen,  IV,  p.  .358)  that  the 
Story  of  the  Three  Youths  originally  stood  in  the  book  of  Daniel,  following  Dan.  6:1.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  lie  should  have  made  few  converts  to  this  view. 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  49 

older  than  the  rest  of  the  book,  and  it  seems  to  me  to  be  probable, 
for  every  reason/^  It  is  not  a  necessary  conclusion,  however, 
for  the  author  of  Dan.  6:1  f.  may  have  intended  to  represent  his 
Darius  as  instituting  customs  which  continued  down  to  the  time 
of  the  Persian  king  Darius  Nothus. 

After  the  Story  became  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  Jews, 
interest  was  centered  more  on  the  three  youths  themselves  than 
on  the  wise  sayings  which  they  uttered.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
all  three  of  them  were  soon  believed  to  have  been  Jews.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Neapolitan  Synopsis,  for  example  (Lagarde,  Sepiiia- 
gmta-Studien,  II,  p.  84),  the  two  comrades  of  Zerubbabel  on  this 
occasion  were  Jeshua  and  Ezra.''  That  which  led  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Greek  Esdras  fragment  was,  of  course,  not  any  regard 
for  the  true  text  (those  who  cared  for  the  text  would  have  been 
far  more  likely  to  destroy  the  fragment),  or  for  the  true  course 
of  the  history ;  but  solely  the  personal  interest  in  Zerubbabel  and 
the  picturesque  story  of  his  life  given  in  this  document.  For  an 
illustration  of  the  early  Christian  interest  in  this  hero,  see  the  Lucca 
old  Latin  codex  (Lagarde,  Septuagihta-StHdien,  II,  p.  19,  3fiP.). 

In  the  translation  which  here  follows,  the  Story  of  the  Three 
Youths  has  been  separated  from  the  interpolator's  additions,  and 
stands  by  itself  once  more,  for  the  first  time  since  200  B.  c.  It  is 
also  treated  for  the  first  time  as  a  translation  from  an  Aramaic 
original,  with  an  attempt  to  restore,  as  far  as  possible,  the  meaning 
of  the  primitive  text.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  one,  reading  the 
composition  as  it  stands  here,  will  deny  to  it  a  very  high  place  in 
the  literature  of  the  ancient  Semitic  world.  In  translating  the 
Story  and,  later  on,  the  additions  of  the  interpolator,  I  have 
followed  Swete's  text,  not  only  because  it  is  the  most  convenient, 
but  also  because  it  represents  that  recension  of  whose  readings 
we  are  surest  here.  I  have  departed  from  it  only  in  4:29,  for 
reasons  already  given.  In  a  preceding  chapter  (above,  pp.  23  tf.) 
I  introduced  some  evidence  showing  that  our  Greek  is  a  rendering 
of  an  Aramaic  text;  many  more  proofs  of  the  same  nature  will  be 
found  in  the  notes  appended  to  my  translation. 

16  The  story  was  interpolated  in  the  book  of  Ezra  somewhere  near  the  bcginnius  of  the 
second  century  b.  C,  in  all  probability.  If  the  old  Greek  translation  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh. 
really  lay  before  Eupolemus,  in  the  middle  of  that  century  (see  Schttrer,  Geschichte  des 
jiid.  Volkcs-K  III,  311i  352  f.),  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  was  the  same  translation  from 
which  our  "I  Esdras"  fragment  was  derived. 

n  Ezra  and  Zerubbabel  not  infrequently  appear  together  in  this  way.  In  the  Chronicle 
of  John  of  Nikiu  (od.  Zotenberg,  pp.  169,  391)  the  two  are  identified. 


50  Ezra  Studies 

ii.    translation 

(IEsdra8  3:l-4:42) 

3'  King  Darius  made  a  great  feast  for  all  his  retainers;  namely,^ 
all  the  members  of  his  household,  all  the  nobles  of  Media  and 
Persia,  "and  all  the  satraps,  captains,  and  governors  under  his  rule, 
from  India  to  Ethiopia,  in  the  hundred  and  twenty-seven  provinces. 
^  And  they  ate  and  drank,  and  when  they  were  sated  they  went 
away.     Darius  the  king  also  retired  to  his  bed-chamber  and  slept. 

*Then  stood  on  the  watch''  the  three  young  guardsmen  who 
protected  the  person  of  the  king.  And  they  said  to  one  another: 
'"  Let  each  one  of  us  name  a  thing  which  is  mightiest ;''  and  to  him 
whose  sentence  shall  seem  wisest,  Darius  the  king  shall  give  great 
gifts  and  magnificent  honors,'^  ^  namely,^  permission  to  be  clothed 
in  purple,  to  drink  from  gold  and  to  sleep  upon  gold,  (to  ride  in) 
a  chariot  with  a  golden  bridle,  and  (to  wear)  a  tiara  of  fine  linen, 
and  a  chain  about  his  neck ;  '  and  he  shall  sit  next  to  Darius 
because  of  his  wisdom,  and  shall  be  called  Darius'  kinsman. 
**  So  they .  wrote  each  his  own  sentence ;  and  having  sealed  the 
writing  they  put  it  under  the  pillow  of  Darius  the  king,  saying, 
^  When  the  king  awakes,  the  writing  shall  be  given '^  to  him;  and 
whose  sentence  is  adjudged  by  the  king  and  the  three  lords  of 
Persia  t9  be  the  wisest,  to  him  shall  be  awarded  the  victory,  as 
prescribed.     '"  The  first  wrote.  Wine  is  mightiest.     ''  The  second 

''The  "I  {=  Kixi  2')  is  either  explicative  (cf.  the  note  on  vs.  6)  or  secondary. 
It  is  sufficiently  obvious,  even  without  the  comparison  of  Esther  1:3,  that 
ttSlclv  Tois  vt'  avTov  (=  probably  "^rrn^y  bob)  does  not  mean  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Persian  realm.  The  enumeration  which  follows  proceeds  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest  of  those  who  were  invited.  Whether  or  not  the  trans- 
lator here  used  olKoyevris  as  a  synonym  of  ffvyyev-^s,  its  Aramaic  original  (very 
likely  nrr^l  "^32)  certainly  meant  more  than  "  houee-servants'' ! 

''See  the  suggestion  for  emendation  of  the  Aramaic  text  which  was 
made  in  a  previous  chapter  (above,  p.  24).  Instead  of  kuI  e^virvos  iyivero.  Tdre 
ol  rpeis  veavlffKOL  ....  elirav  Kxi.,  a  Greek  version  giving  the  original  mean- 
ing would  have  read  in  some  such  way  as  this:  Kal  ypTjyopovvres  ^aav  rbre 
ol  rpeis  veavlffKoi  .  ...  Kal  elirav  kt€.  The  unusual  position  of  the  word  ')'^"Ti?3 
(=r6Tf;  was  probably  the  cause  of  the  misunderstanding  (or  corruption)  of 
the  Aramaic  text. 

•^Or,  "Let  each  one  of  us  frame  a  sentence,  (declaring)  what  thing  is 
mightiest."     In  any  case,  our  Greek  is  a  mistranslation;  see  above,  p.  24. 

<^The  original  probably  had  here  a  derivative  of  nSJD  . 

*  Apparently  another  explicative  1.     Cf.  the  note  on  vs.  1. 

^ Ail)(rov(Tiv  avT(fi:  the  favorite  idiom  in  Aramaic,  employing  the  indefinite 
third  person  plural  in  the  place  of  a  passive. 


The  Story  or  the  Three  Youths  51 

wrote,  The  king  is  mightiest.  *^  The  third  wrote,  Women  are 
mightiest;  but  Truth  is  victor  over  all  things. 

'^80  when  the  king  awoke,  they  took  the  writing  and  gave  it 
to  him,  and  he  read  it.  '*  And  he  sent  and  summoned  all  the 
nobles  of  Persia  and  Media,  and  the  satraps,  captains,  governors, 
and  magistrates;^  and  when  they  had  seated  themselves^  in  the 
hall  of  audience  the  writing  was  read  before  them.  '*And  they 
said,'^  Call  the  youths,  and  they  shall  expound  their  sentences. 
So  they  were  summoned  and  came  in.  "*  And  they  said  to  them, 
Discourse  to  us  concerning  the  things  which  you  have  written. 

Then  the  first,  who  had  declared  the  power  of  wine,  proceeded** 
to  speak  as  follows:  ''Sirs,  how  mighty  a  thing  is  wine!  It 
seduces  the  wit  of  all  who  drink  it;  '^  It  makes  of  one  mind  the 
king  and  the  orphan,  the  slave  and  the  freeman,  the- poor  and  the 
rich.  ^^  It  turns  every  mood  into  gaiety  and  glee ;  of  distress,  or 
of  debt,  there  is  no  recollection.  ^"  It  makes  all  hearts  feel  rich ; 
there  is  no  remembrance  of  king  or  satrap ;  the  discourse  is  all  in 
talents.  ^^  Those  who  have  drunk  forget  friend  and  brother,  and 
erelong  swords  are  drawn ;  ^^  then,  when  they  wake  from  the  wine, 
they  remember  not  what  they  have  done.  ^^  Sirs,  is  not^  the  wine 
mightiest,  since  it  can  thus  compel?  When  he  had  thus  spoken, 
he  ceased. 

4^  Then  the  second  youth,  who  had  declared  the  power  of  the 
king,  spoke*^  as  follows.  ^Sirs,  are  not  men  mighty,  since  they 
rule  the  land  and  the  sea,  and  all  that  is  in  them  ?  ^  But  the  king 
is  jnightier  still,  for  he  is  their  lord  and  master;  in  all  that  he 
commands  them  they  obey  him.    *If  he  orders^  them  to  war  with 

*  Compare  the  enumeration  of  officers  in  Dan.  3:2,  where  the  first  four 
titles,  in  the  old  Greek  translation,  are  the  same  and  in  the  same  order  as  here. 

^  Read  iKddKrav,  plural,  with  the  Latin,  Syriac,  Ethiopic,  and  the  following 
context. 

•^Read  elirav,  plural,  with  the  Syriac  and  vs.  16. 

'^The  use  of  vp^aro  in  this  narrative  (also  4:1,  13;  cf.  further  4:44,  where 
ijp^aTo  must  be  read  in  place  of  the  first  -qlj^aTo)  suggests  the  well-known 
Aramaic  usage,  in  which  a  conventional  and  often  almost  meaningless  ^ITT 
is  prefixed  to  the  narrating  verb.  See  Dalman,  Die  Worte  Jesu.  p.  29;  J.  H. 
Moulton,  Grammar  of  Neio  Testament  Greek  (1906),  I,  15. 

■=  Compare  the  rhetorical  question  introduced  by  Sbn  in  Dan.  4:27,  where 
Theodotion's  translation  has  ovx,  as  here. 

'Concerning  ijp^aTo,  see  the  note  on  3:16. 

sEtirri  for  the  Aramaic  "ITSS,  "command." 


52  Ezra  Studies 

one  another,  they  do  it.  If  he  sends  them  out  against  the  enemy, 
they  go,  and  overcome  mountains,  walls,  and  towers.  ^  They  slay, 
and  are  slain,  but  the  king's  command  they  transgress  not.  If 
they  conquer,  they  bring  all  the  booty  to  him ;  and  when  they  make 
raids  for  plunder,  whatever  they  take^'  is  his.  '  They  also,  in  turn, 
who  serve  not  as  soldiers,  who  go  not  to  war,  but  ctdtivate  the 
soil;  as  often  as  they  sow,  of  the  harvest  they  carry  to  the  king; 
yea,  each  constrains  his  fellow  to  bring  tribute  to  the  king.  ^'^  And 
yet  he  is  one  man  only.''  '  If  he  orders  to  slay,  they  slay ;  if  to 
spare,  they  spare;  if  to  smite,  they  smite.  "If  he  orders  to  lay 
waste,  they  lay  waste;  if  to  build,  they  build.  "If  he  orders  to 
cut  down,  they  cut  down;  if  to  plant,  they  plant.''  '"All  his 
people  and  his  armies  obey  him.  He,  furthermore,  reclines;  he 
eats  and  drinks,  and  then  sleeps ;  "  but  they  keep  watch  round 
about  him ;  no  one  may  depart  to  do  his  own  work,  nor  may  any 
oppose  his  will.  '^Sirs,  how  shall  not  the  king  be  mightiest, 
since  he  is  thus  obeyed?     And  he  ceased. 

'^Then   the  third,  who  had   spoken  of   women,  and  of  truth 
(this  was  Zerubbabel'^)  took  up^  the  word.     '*  Sirs,  is  not  the  king 


*  It  is  quite  possible  that  dWa  correctly  represents  the  original  Aramaic 
text;  but  if  this  is  so,  the  writer  at  least  expressed  himself  awkwardly.  As 
Fritzsche  observes,  the  ancient  versions  and  copyists,  as  well  as  modern  trans- 
lators, have  been  troubled  by  this  clause.  It  may  be  that  the  original  con- 
tained a  form  derived  from  the  root  in^J  "take,  seize,"  instead  of  one  from 
nn«,  "other." 

''This  clause,  Kal  avrbs  eh  /jl6vos  iffrlv,  is  better  joined  to  the  preceding  than 
to  the  following  verse.  So  far  as  the  Greek  is  concerned,  it  might  be  connected 
either  way,  though  the  reading  of  the  Lagarde  text  seems  to  join  it  to  the 
preceding.  Our  present  verse-division  here  is  due  to  the  influence  of  the  Latin 
translation;  the  other  versions  are  non-committal.  Such  translations  as  that 
of  Guthe,  "Er  allein  ist  einzig  !  "  (following  Fritzsche)  miss  the  true  meaning. 
The  Aramaic  could  not  have  expressed  such  an  idea  in  these  words.  The 
original  was  unquestionably:  in  ID^  i?^m.  Compare  Josh.  22:20,  Nim 
nnX  TD'^i?  ,  where  the  Greek  renders  by  Kal  oCros  els  fiSvos.  With  the  phrase  as 
used  here  cf.  Judith  1:11,  where  it  is  said  that  the  rebellious  nations  did  not 
fear  Nebuchadnezzar,  dXX'  ^v  ivavriov  airuv  ws  dvrip  eh. 

"^  These  sentences,  vss.  7-9,  have  a  decidedly  Aramaic  sound.  This  persis- 
tent omission  of  conjunctions  and  conditional  particles,  after  the  opening 
clause,  would  be  less  likely  in  Hebrew. 

**  These  words  were  not  in  the  original  story,  which  made  no  mention  of 
the  Jews.  The  gloss  was  added  either  by  the  one  who  interpolated  the  story 
in  the  Chronicler's  history,  or  by  a  still  earlier  hand. 

'See  the  note  on  3:16. 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  53 

great;  and  are  not  the  sons  of  men  mighty;^  and  tlie  wine,  is  it 
not  powerful?  Who  now  is  it  that  rules  all  these,  that  governs 
them,  is  it  not  woman?  '^Of  woman  the  king  was  born;  and  all 
the  people  who  rule  the  sea  and  the  land  *""were  born  of  women.'' 
'*  They  nourished  the  men  who  planted  the  vineyards  whence  the 
wine  comes. "^  ''  It  is  they  who  give  grace  to  mankind,*'  and  with- 
out them  men  could  not  live.  '"  If  men  have  gathered  gold  and 
silver,  and  aught  else  precious,  and  see  a  woman  comely  in  form 
and  feature,^  "*  leaving  all  this  they  gape  at  her,  and  with  open 
mouth  they  gaze  upon  her;  yea,  all  choose  her  above  gold  and 
silver  and  everything  precious.  '"A  man  forsakes  his  own  father, 
who  brought  him  up,  and  his  native  land,  and  joins  himself  to  his 
wife ;  "^  to  her  he  abandons  himself,^  and  remembers  not  father, 
nor  mother,  nor  country.  ^^  Hence  also  you  may  know^  that 
women  rule  you :  do  you  not  labor  and  toil,  and  then  bring  all  and 
give  it  to  women?      '^^A  man  takes  his*"  sword,  and  goes  forth  to 

^UoWol  is  an  obvious  mistranslation  of  "("'Ql^'l.  Cf.  vss.  2  and  15;  the 
meaning  "mighty"  is  absolutely  necessary. 

t'On  the  relation  of  the  Greek  translation  to  the  Aramaic  text  of  these 
clauses,  see   above,   p.  24.     The   original   was:    S12y  bZ)^  StsbTS  n~b"J  "j'^TCj 

•=  In  the  Syriac  (Hexaplar)  version,  instead  of  ]ooi  li.i>o-»»?  ^aJoi  ,^)  which 
is  attested  by  all  the  MSS,  the  reading  should  be  looi   ]f^>a^   ^oi  ^? . 

^In  all  probability,  the  original  Aramaic  was  something  like  "2^  "i'^jm 
XTTISb  S'1~n .  The  object  of  the  verb  was  a  word  which  meant  "adornment," 
and  could  be  understood  in  either  one  of  two  ways;  see  also  my  note 
above,  p.  2i.  Our  Greek  gives  us  two  translations:  (cai  avrai  woioOffiv  toj 
(TToXds  Tuiv  dvdpuTTuv  slde  by  side  with  Kai  alrai  noiovo-iv  dd^av  rois  dvOpJiirois.  (The 
L  text  tries  to  escape  this  awkwardness  by  transposing  the  o-ToXdj  clause  into 
vs.  16,  where  it  is  obviously  out  of  place.)  For  the  likelihood  of  such  an 
ambiguity,  cf.  such  passages  as  Ps.  29:2,  and  I  Mace.  14:9,  ivedOa-avro  56faj  Kal 
(TToXas  TToXifiov  (where  in  the  original  Hebrew  iilS  =  woX^/mv  was  a  copyist's 
mistake  for  ''22). 

«How  is  it  possible  to  suppose  that  a  Greek  author  composing  these 
lines  would  have  perpetrated  such  an  unnatural  and  unnecessary  barbarism  as 
KaXriv  ri  etSei  Kal  t<?  KtiWei  ?  But  we  expect  that  sort  of  thing  from  a  trans- 
lator. 

•^The  Greek,  /cat  nera  rrji  yvvaiKbs  a.<pli}(ri  Tr]v  ^pvx^v,  plainly  represents  the 
Aramaic  ntJBD  p^TlJ  HnPIS  Hlbl,  lit.,  et  apudmulieremsuain  se  relinquit, 
which  the  translator  misunderstood. 

^The  use  of  the  Greek  Se?  suggests  Aramaic  Xbl  or  piT  or  T'lX,  but 
not  any  Hebrew  idiom. 

•'In  the  Syriac,  instead  of    oi,-*)^  (so  all  the  MSS)  we  must  read  av^? . 


54  Ezra  Studies 

raid,  and  to  rob  and  steal ;  he  sails  over  seas  and  rivers,^  ^*  faces 
the  lion,  and  makes  his  way  through  the  darkness.  Then,  when 
he  has  stolen,  plundered,  and  robbed,  he  brings  all  to  his 
love.  "^A  man  loves  his  wife  far  more^  than  father  or  mother: 
^*for  women,  many  have  parted  from  their  wits;  for  them  they 
have  been  made  slaves ;  ^'  yea,  many  have  been  ruined,  have  fallen, 
and  perished,*"  for  woman's  sake.  ^*  And  now,  will  you  not  believe 
me?  Is  not  the  king  great  in  his  power?  Do  not  all  countries 
fear  to  touch  him?  "''Yet  I  saw'^  the  king's  concubine,  Apama,* 
the  daughter  of  Artabazos  son  of  Thamasios,  sitting  at  the  king's 
right  hand;  ^"I  saw  her  snatch  the  crown  from  his  head,  and 
place  it  upon  her  own;  with  her  left  hand  she  slapped  the  king. 
^*  In  spite  of  all  this,^  the  king  gazed  upon  her  with  open  mouth. 
As  oft  as  she  smiled  upon  him,  he  laughed ;  if  she  became  vexed, 
he  wheedled,  that  he  might  be  restored  to  favor.  ■  ^'Sirs,  must 
not  the  women  be  mighty,  seeing  they  do  such  things  as  these  ? 

^Then  the  king  and  the  nobles  looked  at  one  another.^  There- 
upon  he   went  on*"   to  speak   of    truth.     ^^  Sirs,   are  not  women 

^Et's  TTjv  dd\a(7a-av  irXeTv  is  not  Greek;  the  eh  merely  reproduces  an  Aramaic 
3.  If  0113  was  the  verb  used,  we  know  from  the  Syriac  that  it  was  regularly 
construed  with  this  preposition. 

^  The  Greek  TrXeto;' ....  ndWov  suggests  at  once  the  Aramaic  T^ri']  ....  55''3'lp; 
the  Hebrew  has  no  idiom  which  would  fit  exactly  here. 

"=  Greek  ijfidpToffav,  but  we  may  be  certain  that  this  singularly  feeble  anti- 
climax did  not  exist  in  the  original.  The  Syriac  does  not  render  by  )_^  ,  but 
chooses  a  verb  (^)  which  may  mean  either  "err"  or  "be  ruined;"  and 
doubtless  some  such  word  stood  in  the  Aramaic. 

••Guthe  has:     Und  doch  schauten  sie  (!)  ihn. 

«0n  this  name,  and  the  other  names  in  the  verse,  see  above.  The  Latin 
of  the  Lucca  codex  (Lagarde,  Septuaginta-Studien,  II,  17),  mentioned  above, 
\xas  heve:  et  Dehannapenevi  {L&g.  edits,  Dehanna  pemen]  fllia  Bezzachi  .  .  .  . 
concubina  regis  sedentem  vidi  circa  i-egem.  Lagarde  did  not  attempt  to 
explain  this,  but  only  observed  that  the  latter  part  of  this  singular  word  ("des 
sonderbaren  Worts")  contained  the  name  ' Atr^fin-qv.  The  rest  is  simply  a 
mutilated  [vi]debam,  which  rendered  the  Greek  iOeuipovv.  This  Lucca  text  is 
derived  from  a  close  translation  of  the  Syrian  Greek  recension. 

^The  Greek  Kal  wpbs  tovtois,  "moreover,"  is  probably  a  mistranslation  of 

KThere  is  no  need  to  attempt,  as  Fritzsche  and  others  have  done,  to  explain 
the  singular  "  idiom  "' e/3\e7rov  efs  rdi' grepov.  Even  Codex  B  may  sutler  from 
scribal  errors,  and  in  this  case  the  original  was  unquestionably  f^Xeirov  eU  els 
Til/  irepov  —  this  being  the  preposition  with  which  the  verb  in  this  sense  is 
most  commonly  construed.     One  ets  fell  out  by  accident. 

■•See  the  note  on  3:16. 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  55 

mighty?  Great  is  the  earth,  and  lofty  the  sky,  and  swift  the  sun 
in  his  course,  for  he  rounds  the  circuit  of  the  heavens,  and  returns 
again  to  his  place  in  a  single  day.  '^  Is  not  he  great  who  does 
this?  But''  truth  is  greatest  and  mightiest  of  all.''  '"AH  the 
earth  invokes  truth,  and  the  heavens  praise  her;  and  all  created 

things'^  totter  and  tremble '^  and  with  her*  is  no  error "^  at 

all.  ^'  Perverse  is  the  wine,  perverse  is  the  king,  perverse  are 
women;  perverse  are  all  the  children  of  men,  and  all  their  works, 
all  such  alike,  if^  truth  abide  not  in  them;  and  in  their  perversity 
they  shall  perish.  **  But  truth  endures,  and  grows  ever  stronger; 
yea,   lives  and  prevails  for   ever   and   ever.      ^' With  her  is''  no 

^ Could  any  Greek  writer,  not  a  translator,  have  been  content  to  use  /cof 
for  the  conjunction  both  here  and  at  the  beginning  of  vs.  38? 

''The  addition  of  irapd  to  the  comparative  degree  of  the  adjective  prob- 
ably translates  ]'i2  ITl"'.     Cf  the  Syriac. 

"^  'Epya  probably  translating  XPT^^y. 

''It  seems  probable  that  something  is  missing  here,  perhaps  only  a  few 
words.  What  we  have  in  our  present  text  is  not  suflBcient  to  give  the  third 
clause  of  the  verse  a  satisfactory  connection  with  its  surroundings,  nor  to  pre 
pare  the  way  for  the  last  clause.  We  might  imagine  some  such  progress  of 
the  thought  as  this:  "And  all  created  things  totter  and  tremble  [before  her, 
for  she  alone  is  perfect,]  and  with  her  is  no  error  at  all."  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  all  our  manuscripts  aad  versions  are  derived  from  a  single  faulty 
Greek  codex,  which  in  turn  represented  a  translation  made  from  a  more  or 
less  imperfect  Aramaic  text. 

*The  only  well  attested  reading  is  fier' avroO, '' with  him."  Thus  both 
the  Lagarde  text  and  the  Egyptian  text  (represented  by  the  codices  A,  B,  and 
their  fellows).  The  reason  for  the  choice  of  the  masculine  pronoun  was  of 
course  the  desire  to  find,  or  to  introduce,  the  mention  of  God  in  this  most 
important  passage,  especially  after  the  seeming  mention  of  him  in  the  words 
6s  raOra  woLeT,  in  the  preceding  verse;  see  further  the  note  on  vs.  40.  In  all 
probability,  Josephus  had  before  him  the  reading  fur'  avroO;  at  all  events, 
he  adopts  the  interpretation  which  it  embodies.  Since  the  Greek  translation 
was  made  after  this  story  had  become  a  part  of  the  Chronicler's  history,  it  is 
most  likely  that  the  translator  himself  chose  the  masculine  pronoun  here. 
But  in  the  original,  the  suffix  pronoun  certainly  referred  to  "Truth."  The 
necessity  of  this  is  .so  obvious  that  some  Greek  codices  and  the  Latin  version 
have  corrected  accordingly. 

'It  is  a  pity  that  we  do  not  know  what  Aramaic  words  are  rendered  by 
dX-rjOeia  and  ddiKla,  in  these  verses.  Supposing  the  former  to  have  been  SliTDIp, 
the  latter  would  have  been  some  such  word  as  i5^^7  (literally  "crookedness"). 

^According  to  the  conjecture  already  made;  above,  p.  25. 

^Kal  ovK  fO-TL  Trap'  avry  Xaix^dvetv  Kri.  is  an  unusual  way  of  saying  in  (ireek 
"She  does  not  accept,"  etc.  The  original  was  l^SS  acob  nnb  ^rX  SbT 
How  natural  this  form  of  words  is  in  Aramaic  may  be  seen  from  Deut.  10: 17, 
where  the  Hebrew  has  simply  □"^ID  SC  S5,  while  the  Targum  replaces  this 
by  the  same  idiom  which  we  have  here. 


56  Ezra  Studies 

respect  of  persons,  nor  seeking  of  profit,''  but  she  executes  judg- 
ment on''  all  the  evil  and  wicked.  All  approve  her  acts,  '*"'  and  in 
her  judgment  there  is  no  injustice.*'  *"  And  hers*^  is  the  might,  and 
the  kingdom,  and  the  power,  and  the  majesty  for  ever  and  ever.* 
Blessed  of  God  is*^  truth!  "And  he  ceased  speaking.^  Then  all 
the  people  cried  out,  saying.  Great  is  truth,  and  mightiest  of  all! 
*'  Then  the  king  said  to  him :  Ask  what  thou  wilt,  above  what 
was  prescribed,  and  we  will  give  it  thee,  since  thou  art  proved 
wisest;  and  thou  shalt  sit  beside  me,  and  be  called  my  kinsman. 

III.      THE    interpolator's    ADDITIONS 

It  is  most  likely  that  the  story  in  its  original  form  ended  at 
this  point  (the  end  of  verse  42)  and  in  just  this  way.  It  is  true 
that  the  king  is  made  to  say:  "Ask  what  thou  wilt,  above  what 
was  prescribed,  and  we  will  give  it  thee;"  but  it  is  quite  prob- 
able that  this  was  merely  a  picturesque  oriental  flourish,  and  that 
the  hearers  or  readers  were  left  to  imagine  for  themselves  what, 

»Aid0opa  here  in  the  post-classical  sense  "rewards"  or  ''gifts;"  the  mean- 
ing being  that  Truth,  as  judge,  neither  regards  persons  nor  takes  bribes. 
Cf.  II  Chron.  19:7,  ovk  fo-nv  fxera  Kvplov  deov  rjixCov  dSiKla  ovdi  dav/xdcrai  irpda-cuTTOv 
oi}5^  Xa^eXv  dwpa,  a  parallel  which  is  interesting  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  two 
passages  are  presumably  quite  independent  of  each  other. 

''The  Greek  dirb  translating  I'O.  On  the  Aramaic  idiom  here,  found  also 
Ezra  7:26,  see  above,  p.  25. 

"^On  the  reading  of  the  Hexaplar  Syriac  in  this  clause,  see  above,  p.  5. 

''We  must  of  course  read  either  avrijs  or  aiiry.  The  former  (which  is  per- 
haps more  likely  to  have  been  the  original,  if  the  Aramaic  was  nb"i~ )  is  the 
reading  of  the  Lagarde  text;  the  latter  that  of  the  Egyptian  recension. 

^This  sentence  may  well  have  been  the  origin  of  the  doxology  which  has 
been  appended  to  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  Matt.  6:13. 

•^The  reading  of  the  Greek,  evXoyrjTbs  6  debs  t^s  dXtjdelas,  "blessed  is  the 
God  of  truth,"  is  manifestly  unsuitable.  If  the  speaker  had  intended  to 
advance  from  the  praise  of  truth  to  that  of  God,  he  would  have  needed  to 
begin  sooner.  The  least  that  we  could  require  of  him  would  be  that  he  should 
indicate  the  relation  of  CJod  to  truth.  Verse  41,  moreover,  ignores  any  ascrip- 
tion of  praise  to  God  in  the  closing  words  of  the  discourse.  Evidently,  our 
present  reading  is  due  to  the  same  interpretation  or  redaction  which  found  or 
introduced  the  mention  of  the  deity  in  vss.  35  and  30.  The  original  was  pre- 
sumably S'Jirip  iinbx  I'^yg,  "Blessed  of  God  is  truth,"  the  construct  state 
being  employed  in  the  manner  familiar  from  the  Old  Testament.  In  all 
probability,  the  Greek  translator  is  the  one  who  should  be  held  responsible 
for  the  misinterpretation  both  here  and  in  vs.  36;  see  the  note  there.  It  is  of 
course  possible  that  the  whole  clause  is  a  later  addition. 

*^ The  Greek  (!)  phr&se,  Kal  i(rn!)TT}(T€  tov  XaXelv,  renders  the  Aramaic  pPTCI 
nbbia'p'a  ;  cf.  for  example  the  Targum  of  Job  32: 1. 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  57 

if  anything,  it  was  that  the  young  soldier  requested.  Certain  it 
is,  at  all  events,  that  verse  42  as  a  whole  was  not  written  by  the 
interpolator,  for  he  would  not  have  ended  it  in  this  way;  the 
last  clause  only  serves  to  interrupt  his  undertaking.  If  we  sup- 
pose that  the  tale  originally  liad  another  conclusion,  which  he  has 
replaced  by  his  own,  it  is  not  of  the  least  use  to  try  to  conjecture 
N\'hat  that  conclusion  was. 

As  has  already  been  remarked,  it  was  probably  the  interpolator 
himself  who  inserted  the  gloss,  "this  was  Zerubbabel,"  in  4:13; 
and  he  now  proceeds,  with  manifest  skill,  to  effect  the  transition 
to  the  Chronicler's  narrative  of  the  returning  Jews  and  the  help 
given  them  by  Cyrus.  Only  four  verses  (43-47  a)  are  needed  at 
this  point,  namely  the  following: 

*^Then  he  said  to  the  king:  Remember  the  vow  ichich  thou  didst 
make,  to  build  Jerusalem  in  the  day  ivhen  thou  shouldst  receive  tliy 
kingdom,^^  **and  to  send  back  all  the  vessels  ichich  were  taken  from 
Jerusalem,  which  Cyrus  when  he  first^^  conquered  Babylon  brought 
away,^^'  but  vowed'^^  to  return  them  thither;  *^and  thou  didst  jyromise  to 
build  the  temple  which  the  Edomites  burned'-^  when  Judea  teas  laid 
waste  by  the  Chaldeans.  *'^And  now,  this  is  the  thing  tchich  I  ask,  my 
lord  the  king,  and  for  which  I  make  request  of  thee,  since  such  munifi- 
cence is  thine ;  ^^  I  ask  that  thou  perform  the  voiv  which  thou  didst  vow 
to  the  King  of  Heaven^*  with  thine  own  lips  to  perform.  "  Then  Darius 
the  king  arose,  and  kissed  him ;  and  \  wrote  for  him  letters,  etc. 

18  From  the  order  of  the  words  in  the  Greek,  coupled  with  our  knowledge  of  the  closeness 
of  this  rendering,  it  is  evident  that  the  connection  of  clauses  is  that  which  I  have  given  in  the 
translation:  Darius  had  vowed  to  do  these  things  when  he  should  come  to  the  throne. 
According  to  the  interpolator,  this  feast  at  the  Persian  capital  took  place  at  or  very  near 
the  beginning  of  Darius'  reign.  This  is  also  made  necessary  by  the  sequel:  the  altar  was 
built  by  the  returned  exiles  "in  the  seventh  month"  (of  the  first  year  of  Darius),  I  Esdr. 
5:46;  the  foundation  of  the  temple  was  first  laid  "in  the  second  year  in  the  second  month," 
5:55;  and  the  interrupted  work  of  building  was  renewed  before  the  end  of  this  same  year, 
thanks  to  the  efforts  of  the  prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  6:1.  All  this  chronology  is 
flatly  contradicted  by  5 : 6,  to  be  sure ;  see  below,  pp.  60  f . 

19  We  must  read  ^pfaro  in  place  of  the  first  riv^aro ;  cf.  the  note  on  3:16.  I  see  that  Gaab 
(cited  in  Fritzsche)  has  anticipated  me  in  this  conjecture. 

■i'lThe  Greek  has  ex^piaev,  "sot  apart,"  which  might  do  here,  but  would  not  do  in  vs.  .57, 
where  it  is  used  in  a  similar  context.  The  reading  €|ex"'P1<''"'i  found  in  codex  A,  and 
preferred  by  Fritzsche,  is  only  a  correction,  and  a  poor  one  at  that,  for  the  verb  eicx^peo)  is 
ordinarily  intransitive.  The  interpolator's  theory  of  the  temple  vessels  was  this:  When 
Cyrus  took  Babylon,  he  carried  away  some  of  these  vessels  to  Susa,  with  the  other  plunder ; 
the  rest  of  them,  which  were  still  in  Babylon,  he  sent  to  Jerusalem  by  Sheshbazzar,  promising 
to  send  the  remainder  (those  in  Susa)  at  some  later  time.  See  also  vs.  .57  and  the  note 
there.  In  both  verses,  44  and  57,  the  original  had  a  verb  which  meant  to  "bring  forth"  or 
"carry  away  "  (hero  probably  pSDH) ;  and  this  was  misunderstood  by  the  translator. 

21  The  voluit  of  the  Latin  version  here  must  originally  have  been  vovit. 

22  Interesting  as  embodying  the  popular  tradition  in  Palestine  in  the  third  century  B.C. 

23  On  the  Aramaic  text  of  this  clause,  see  above,  p.  29,  note. 

2* An  unusual  and  interesting  title;  also  vs.  58,  Dan.  4:34  (cf.  5:23). 


58  Ezra  Studies 

At  this  point,  the  Chronicler's  Hebrew  narrative  was  reached. 
The  verse  began  with  the  words:  "And  Cyrus  the  king  wrote 
for  him  (i.  e.,  Sheshbazzar)  letters,"  etc.  This  the  interpolator 
altered  skilfully,  as  usual.  Up  to  this  point  the  Aramaic 
language  had  been  used  (see  above,  pp.  29 f. ) ;  now  Hebrew 
took  its  place.  The  transition,  it  should  be  observed,  was  a 
particularly  easy  one,  inasmuch  as  the  vocabulary  of  this  verse 
and  of  the  verses  immediately  following  is  almost  identically  the 
same  in  the  two  languages.  The  Jewish  reader  of  that  day  would 
not  have  been  disturbed  by  the  change,  and,  indeed,  might  not 
have  noticed  it  at  all  until  several  verses  of  the  Hebrew  had 
been  read. 

By  this  first  editorial  insertion,  the  interpolator  gave  the  Story 
of  the  Youths  its  connection  with  Jewish  history.  Darius  the  king 
is  asked  by  the  victorious  youth  to  fulfil  his  promises,  (1)  to 
build  Jerusalem;  (2)  to  send  to  Jerusalem  the  temple  vessels 
which  Cyrus  had  carried  from  Babylon  to  Susa,  but  had  promised 
to  restore  to  the  Jews;  (3)  to  build  the  temple  in  Jerusalem.  It 
is  noteworthy,  and  another  striking  illustration  of  the  self-restraint 
of  the  interpolator,  that  in  these  verses  not  a  word  is  said 
regarding  the  expedition  of  Zerubbabel  and  his  friends 
to  Jerusalem!  This  youth  was  one  of  the  three  body  guardsmen 
of  the  king;  he  does  not  even  ask  for  leave  of  absence,  however, 
but  takes  himself  off  (vs.  61)  as  a  matter  of  course.  The  company 
of  Jews  which  now  sets  out  from  Babylonia  is  a  very  large  one ; 
but  the  youth  does  not  request,  nor  suggest,  that  they  be  allowed 
to  go,  nor  is  any  formal  permission  given.  The  way  in  which 
it  is  simply  taken  for  granted,  in  vs.  47,  that  "he"  and  "those 
with  him"  are  going  up  to  people  Jerusalem,  is  one  of  the  most 
satisfactory  bits  of  incidental  evidence  that  the  juncture  of  the 
patch  with  the  main  narrative — the  continuation  of  Ezra  1 : 1-11  — 
comes  at  just  this  point.  Verses  47  ff.  cannot  possibly  be  regarded 
as  the  sequel  of  43-46. 

A  second  patch  was  necessary  after  verse  56,  at  the  point 
where  the  [)rescriptions  of  the  king  for  the  returning  exiles  came 
to  an  end.  First  of  all,  the  interpolator  had  need  to  introduce 
mention  of  his  second  instalment  of  temple  vessels,  in  accordance 
with  verse  44.  Moreover,  the  need  of  some  transition  from  the 
palace  in  Susa  to  the  Jews  in  Babylonia,  mentioned  in  the 
next  verse  of  the  Chronicler,  was  sufficiently  obvious.     The  inter- 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  59 

polator  fills  these  needs  easily,  as  usual.  He  also  improves  the 
opportunity,  in  narrating  the  exit  of  the  youth  from  the  palace,  to 
introduce  a  little  of  the  religious  element  which  is  so  noticeably 
lacking  in  the  preceding  tale.  The  five  verses  (originally  Hebrew) 
which  constitute  this  patch  read  as  follows: 

"And  he  sent  forth  all  the  vessels  which  Cyrus  had  hrought'^^-'  from 
Babylon  ;  and  all  ichich  Cyrus  had  ordered  to  be  made,  he  himself  com- 
manded to  make'^^  and  send  to  Jerusalem. 

^^  And  lohen  the  youth  ivent  forth,  lifting  up  his  face  to  heaven 
toward  Jerusalem^-''  he  blessed  the  King  of  Heaven,'^^  saying :  '■'^ From 
thee  is  victory,  and  from  thee  tvisdom;-^  thine  is  the  glory,  and  I  am 
thy  servant.  ^^  Blessed  art  thou,  ivho  hast  given  me  ivisdom;  and  to 
thee  I  give  thanks,  O  Lord  of  our  fathers.  ^'  So  he  took  the  letters  and 
icent  forth,^"  and  came  to  Babylon  and  told  all  his  brethren.  |  *-And 
they  blessed  the  God  of  their  fathers,  etc. 

With  verse  62  the  Chronicler's  narrative  is  resumed;  and  after 
this  point  the  work  of  the  interpolator's  hand  is  seen  only  in  5:  2, 
where  the  name  "Cyrus"  is  changed  to  "Darius,"  and  in  5:6, 
where  both  this  change  of  name  and  also  other  alterations  have 
been  made  (see  below). 

This  latter  verse,  5:6,  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  difficulties 
with  which  the  interpolator  was  confronted  in  his  attempt  to  make 
the  best  of  an  impossible  task.  In  some  particulars,  to  be  sure, 
his  expanded  version  of  the  history  might  have  seemed  even  more 
plausible  than  that  of  the  Chronicler  (it  has  been  preferred  in 
.recent  times,  for  instance,  by  so  acute  a  scholar  as  Sir  Henry 
Howorth)  .^^  Thus,  in  the  Chronicler's  narrative  the  career  of 
Zerubbabel  is  extended  over  more  than  a  hundred  years,  from  the 
beginning  of  the  reign  of  Cyrus  down  to  the  first  years  of  the 
reign  of  Darius  II  Nothus.^'  It  is,  of  course,  unfair  to  impose 
our  chronology  upon  the  Chronicler,  who  not  only  made  the  reign 
of  Darius  I  Hystaspis  precede  that  of  Cyrus,  but  also  may  have* 
thought  the  reigns  of  Xerxes  and  Artaxerxes  I  shorter  than  we 

25 The  Greek  has  exwptoei',  but  the  Hebrew  original  probably  had  S'^Siri;  see  the  note 
on  verse  44. 

2«The  Hebrew  text  here  was  very  likely  corrupt. 

27  So  also  in  the  contemporaneous  writings  Dan.  6:11;  Tobit  3:llf. 

2**  See  the  note  on  verse  4(5. 

29  If  the  author  of  the  Story  of  the  Youths  were  writing  this  verso,  we  should  expect  him 
at  least  to  add:  "and  with  thee  is  truth!" 

30  Namely,  from  Susa.  I  do  not  know  that  any  commentator  has  ever  tried  to  explain 
the  words,  "and  came  to  Babylon,"  in  this  verse. 

31  See  also  Marquart,  Fundamente,  pp.  42,  65.  :t2See  above,  p.  38. 


60  Ezra  Studies 

know  them  to  have  been ;  but  even  so,  his  life  of  Zerubbabel  is 
too  long,  and  the  scenes  in  it  are  much  too  far  apart/*  But  in  the 
interpolated  edition  of  the  history,  the  dramatic  unity  is  as 
perfect  as  any  one  could  wish.  Zerubbabel,  the  young  Hebrew,  is 
one  of  the  most  trusted  attendants  of  the  Persian  king.  Sent  by 
him  to  Jerusalem  with  a  large  company,  as  a  reward  for  his  wise 
discourse,  he  restores  the  Jewish  community ;  builds  the  altar  of 
burnt-offerings;  lays  the  foundation  of  the  temple;  repulses  the 
wicked  Samaritans  and  their  allies;  is  stopped  by  them  in  his 
work,  but  begins  it  again  almost  immediately,  before  the  end  of 
the  same  "second  year;"  secures  an  edict  of  the  king  in  his  favor; 
and  finishes  the  work  in  triumph.  And  all  this  happens  within 
the  space  of  six  years!  It  is  no  wonder  that  this  revised  version 
of  the  history  became  so  popular  as  to  supplant  completely  the 
older  version.  But  the  interpolator's  triumph  was  a  very  preca- 
rious one,  for  his  improved  story  of  Zerubbabel  contained  such 
contradictions  as  could  never  stand  the  test  of  a  critical  examina- 
tion. Either  he  was  not  fully  aware  of  these  contradictions 
(interpolators  very  often  fail  to  see  all  the  consequences  of  their 
work),  or  else  he  shared  the  current  dislike  of  erasing  the  written 
word,  and  was  willing  to  rest  his  fate  on  popular  approval  and 
elastic  exegesis.  At  all  events,  he  allowed  such  telltale  verses  as 
I  Esdr.  5:53?)  (  =  Ezra3:7),  68  (  =  Ezra  4:  3),  70  (=Ezra4:5), 
and  the  date  in  I  Esdr.  5 :  6,  to  remain  in  their  places.  In  I  Esdr. 
5 :70,  for  example,  after  the  narrative  which  tells  how  Zerubbabel  and 
his  companions,  in  the  second  year  of  their  return  to  Jeru- 
salem (verse  54),  in  the  reign  of  Darius,  began  to  build  the  temple, 
but  were  stopped  by  their  enemies,  we  read  that  these  enemies 
"hindered  the  completion  of  the  building  during  all  the  lifetime  of 
king  Cyrus,  so  that  the  building  was  stopped  until  the  reign  of 
^king  Darius  !**  Here  the  only  refuge  of  the  interpolator  would  be 
in  the  very  lame  explanation  that  the  verse  was  merely  a  retro- 
spect, its  meaning  being  that  these  enemies  were  able  to  stop  the 
work  of  building  from  the  time  when  the  foundation  was  laid  by 
Sheshbazzar  down  to  the  time  of  Darius.  Even  more  trouble- 
some is  the  verse  I  Esdr.  5:6,  to  which  allusion  has  been  made. 

33 This  was  the  Clironicler's  own  fault,  to  bo  sure,  and  the  necessary  result  of  his  choos- 
ing? to  make  Joshua  and  Zerubbabel  the  leaders  of  his  great  "return"  under  king  Cyrus. 
They  were  already  knovs'ii,  from  the  prophcjcies  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  to  iiavo  flourished 
under  a  "  Darius,"  who,  from  the  chronology  current  among  the  Jews  in  the  last  three  cen- 
turies B.C.,  could  have  been  only  Darius  Nothus. 

3*  The  text  appears  to  be  slightly  corrupt  here;  cf.  the  Hebrew,  and  also  6: 1  (  =  Ezra5:l). 


The  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  61 

This  originally  contained  the  Chronicler's  date  of  the  return  from 
the  exile:  "in  the  second  year  of  the  reign  of  Cyrus  king  of 
Persia,  in  the  month  Nisan,  on  the  first  day  of  the  month."  The 
interpolator  gave  this  a  connection  with  the  mention  of  Zerubba- 
bel,  just  preceding,  and  made  out  of  it:  "who  spoke  wise  words 
before  Darius  king  of  Persia,  in  the  second  year  of  his  reign,  in 
the  month  Nisan,  on  the  first  day  of  the  month."  But  even  with 
this  alteration,  the  date  is  absolutely  impossible  in  the  interpo- 
lated history.  There  is  no  process,  however  violent,  by  which  it 
can  be  brought  into  agreement  with  the  dates  which  follow,  in 
5:46,  55,  6:1.  The  interpolator  may  have  seen  this  difficulty  and 
defied  it,  but  it  is  more  likely  that  it  escaped  his  notice.  He  was 
probably  not  especially  interested  in  chronology,  and  found  it 
easy  to  overlook  such  details  as  these. 

In  spite  of  its  glaring  contradictions,  the  interpolated  edition 
of  the  history  became  the  popular  one,  thanks  to  the  discourses  of 
the  three  youths  and  to  the  improved  story  of  Zerubbabel,  and  in 
a  short  time  had  completely  supplanted  the  original  form ;  so  com- 
pletely, in  fact,  that  not  a  trace  of  the  uninterpolated  work  has 
come  down  to  us,  whether  in  manuscript  or  version,  in  Jewish  or 
Christian  tradition.^^ 

35  As  was  shown  above,  pp.  .3  f.,  our  canonical  Ezra  is  merely  a  mutilated  recension  of 
the  interpolated  book.    This  will  be  further  demonstrated  in  the  sequel. 


IV 

THE  APPARATUS  FOR  THE  TEXTUAL  CRITICISM  OF 
CHRONICLES-EZRA-NEHEMIAH 

I  did  not  at  first  intend  to  devote  a  separate  chapter  to  this 
subject,  as  I  did  not  wish  to  take  the  time  and  space  which  would 
be  necessary.  But  in  the  process  of  editing  and  annotating  the 
portions  of  the  text  which  are  to  follow,  it  became  evident  that 
some  extended  justification  of  my  critical  procedure  would  be 
indispensable.  The  original  plan  of  setting  forth  the  most  neces- 
sary facts  in  an  introductory  page  or  two,  to  be  supplemented  by 
subsequent  footnotes,  might  have  left  room  for  the  suspicion  of 
arbitrary  or  hasty  methods.  Other  considerations,  moreover, 
seem  to  make  it  especially  desirable  that  I  should  give  here  some 
clear  account,  however  brief  and  imperfect,  of  those  parts  of  the 
apparatus  regarding  which  I  feel  able  to  speak  with  confidence. 
The  chief  of  these  considerations  are  the  following:  (1)  No  critical 
use  has  ever  been  made  of  the  versions  of  these  books,  nor  even 
of  any  one  Greek  version  or  recension.'  (2)  No  attempt  has  been 
made  to  determine  or  state  the  principles  of  such  critical  use. 
(3)  The  conclusions  which  I  have  already  reached  and  stated^  in 
regard  to  some  of  the  versions  and  recensions  of  the  Ezra  history 
are  so  revolutionary  as  to  need  all  the  added  corroboration  of  this 
nature  that  can  be  given  them. 

(4r)  Many  other  facts,  hitherto  unobserved,  regarding  manu- 
scripts and  versions  and  their  characteristics  and  mutual  relations 

I I  do  not  wish  to  soem  to  deal  unfairly  with  those  recent  publications  in  which  some 
attempt  has  been  made  to  emend  the  massoretic  text  of  the  oneor  the  other  of  these  books : 
Kittel's  Books  of  Chronicles,  1895 ;  Guthe-Batten's  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  1901 ;  these  being  the 
reconstructed  Hebrew-Aramaic  text  of  the  Po/i/c/u'OHie  Bible;  also  Benzinger's  Biicher  der 
Chronik,  1901;  Kittel's  Bucher  der  Chronik,  1902;  Siegfried's  Esra,  Nehemia  und  Esther, 
1901;  Bertholet's  Esra  und  Nehemia,  1902;  and  Marti's  edition  of  the  Aramaic  portions  of 
Ezra  in  his  Grammatik  der  hiblisch-aramdischen  Sprache,  1896.  But  in  the  following  pages 
sufficient  evidence  will  be  givon  to  justify  fully  the  assertion  that  no  one  of  these  attempts, 
so  far  as  its  treatment  of  text  and  versions  is  concerned,  deserves  to  be  called  "critical." 
In  all  of  these  cases  the  procedure  is  without  any  fixed  principles,  or  any  preliminary  study 
of  either  text  or  versions  with  a  view  to  ascertaining  their  character.  Moreover,  no  one  of 
these  scliolars  shows  any  approach  to  thoroughness  in  his  employment  of  the  materials 
which  he  actually  attempts  to  use.  If  in  any  instance  the  criticism  of  the  text  went  so  far 
as  to  include  the  careful  taking  of  the  testimony  of  oven  codex  B  (ordinarily  called  "the 
SeptuiXKint")  throughout  the  V'hole  extent  of  the  book  or  passage  treated,  the  evidence  of 
this  fact  at  least  does  not  appear,  while  numerous  indications  seem  to  show  the  contrary. 

'-Especially  in  chap,  ii,  iiassini ;  also  in  my  Composition  of  Ezra-Neh. 
62 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       03 

are  so  important  as  to  deserve  some  treatment  here,  at  least  in 
outline.  In  particular,  the  proof  of  the  very  momentous  fact  that 
Theodotion  was  the  author  of  our  "canonical"  Greek  version  of 
Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  ought  at  last  to  be  rendered.^ 

I.       NATURE    OF    THE    TEXT-CRITICAL    PROBLEM 

In  our  Hebrew-Aramaic  tradition  of  the  Chronicler's  history, 
we  have  a  text  which  is  neither  one  of  the  well-preserved  of  those 
which  constitute  the  Old  Testament,  nor  yet  among  the  very 
worst.  The  many  lists  of  names  have  been  carelessly  handled, 
and  are  in  correspondingly  bad  condition.  The  narrative  portions 
read  smoothly  on  the  whole — smoothly,  that  is,  when  their  author- 
ship is  taken  into  account — but  nevertheless  give  plain  evidence 
of  being  corrupt  in  many  places.  The  trouble  lies  not  merely  in 
single  words  and  phrases,  but  also  in  the  apparent  misplacement 
of  a  few  long  passages,  one  of  which  consists  of  several  chapters. 
There  is  ground  for  the  suspicion,  moreover,  that  one  or  more 
passages  of  importance  have  been  lost  from  our  massoretic  recen- 
sion. There  is  good  evidence  of  a  gap  after  Ezra  1:11;  something 
is  plainly  missing  between  6:5  and  6:6;  while  the  presence  of 
the  Story  of  the  Youths  in  I  Esdras  suggests  its  own  important 
problems. 

When  we  come  to  the  testimony  of  the  Greek  versions,  we  are 
confronted  with  two  somewhat  widely  difPering  forms  of  the  history. 
One  of  them  agrees  quite  closely  with  MT,  and  has  the  same 
extent  and  arrangement;  the  other — obviously  a  mere  fragment  — 
begins  near  the  end  of  Chronicles  and  extends  not  quite  through 
the  story  of  Ezra.  During  the  part  of  the  history  covered  by  the 
two  in  common,  the  difference  between  them  lies  in  (1)  the  words 
and  phrases  of  the  narrative,  the  divergence  here  (i.  e.,  in  the 
Greek)  being  very  great;  (2)  the  position  of  extended  passages; 
(3)  material  of  very  considerable  amount  found  in  the  one 
recension  but  not  in  the  other.  We  have  in  the  Greek,  more- 
over, clear  testimony  to  two  difPering  Semitic  texts,  the  differ- 

3  The  following  discussion  of  the  critical  apparatus  is  only  fraRinentary,  leaving  a  good 
many  highly  important  matters  either  half  treated  or  not  touched  upon  at  all.  It  contains 
the  things  in  which  I  have  happened  to  be  especially  interested,  being  in  the  main  based 
upon  collations  made  and  facts  observed  by  mo  twelve  years  ago,  in  the  course  of  my  study 
of  the  literary  and  historical  problems  of  Ezra-Neh.;  and  the  conclusions  are  the  same, 
with  some  slight  modification,  as  those  which  I  then  reached.  But  though  the  discussion 
is  incomplete,  I  believe  that  it  will  at  least  lay  a  sure  foundation  for  further  investigation 


64  EzKA  Studies 

ence  being  such  as  to  suggest  either  a  long  history  of  trans- 
mission along  independent  lines,  or  else  an  unusual  amount  of 
freedom  in  the  handling  of  the  texts.  Of  course,  both  of  these 
causes  might  have  been  operative.  And  finally,  each  one  of 
the  two  main  forms  of  the  narrative,  the  "canonical"  and  the 
"apocryphal,"  has  come  down  to  us  in  a  double  Greek  tradi- 
tion, the  one  embodied  in  Lagarde's  edition,*  and  the  other  con- 
tained in  the  most  of  the  existing  manuscripts,  including  the 
codices  (A,  B,  J<)  used  in  Swete's  Old  Testament  in  Greek. 
That  is,  for  a  portion  of  the  Chronicler's  history  amounting  to 
about  thirteen  chapters,  we  have  at  every  point  to  compare  four 
Greek  texts. 

Of  other  versions,  aside  from  the  Latin  of  Jerome,  which 
was  made  from  our  Hebrew-Aramaic  recension,  we  have  to  take 
into  account  three  renderings  of  the  I  Esdras  Greek,  namely, 
the  Syriac  (the  work  of  Paul  of  Telia),  the  Ethiopic,  and  the 
old  Latin.  The  Syriac  and  Arabic  versions  of  the  canonical 
Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  have  long  been  known  to  be  late  and  well- 
nigh  worthless  ^ — the  Arabic  absolutely  so  —  and  any  attempt 
to  make  a  critical  use  or  "investigation"  of  them  is  a  waste 
of  time. 

It  is  evident  from  this  statement  of  the  case  that  the  solution 
of  the  textual  problem  is  to  be  gained  chiefly  from  an  examination 
of  the  Greek  recensions.  We  need  to  know  the  relative  age  — 
and,  if  possible,  the  actual  age  —  of  the  two  (or  more)  Greek 
translations;  the  principles  according  to  which  they  were  made, 
and  the  extent  to  which  they  can  be  trusted;  their  mutual  rela- 
tions; the  character  and  quality  of  the  Semitic  text  which  lies 
behind  the  Greek  I  Esdras.  And  it  is  obviously  very  important 
(as  it  is  everywhere  else  in  the  Old  Testament)  to  inquire  minutely 
into  the  history  of  the  transmission  of  the  text,  finding  out  how 
and  to  what  extent  the  original  readings  have  been  accidentally 
•or  deliberately  changed,  and  distinguishing  carefully  the  divergent 
lines  of  tradition  which  can  be  recognized.  What  is  the  real 
significance,  for  textual  criticism,  of  the  two  recensions  which  are 
contained,  respectively,  in  the  editions  of  Swete  and  Lagarde? 
What  manuscripts,  or  families  of  manuscripts,  are  especially  note- 
worthy ?  We  have  one  absolutely  sure  witness  to  the  "Septuagint" 
text  of  Origen,  in  the  Syro-Hexaplar  version  of  I  Esdras  and  a 

♦  Librorum  Veteris  Testamenti  canonicorv.m  pars  prior  graece,  Gottingae,  1883. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       65 

part  of  Nehemiali;  which  of  our  Greek  MSS  stand  nearest  to  this 
version?  In  a  word:  On  what  principles  shall  one  proceed  who 
wishes  to  study  critically  the  Hebrew- Aramaic  text  of  these  books 
with  the  aid  of  this  unusually  com[)licated  and  unusually  interest- 
ing a[)paratus? 

These  are  all  questions  which  must  be  answered  before  any 
satisfactory  criticism  of  the  text  of  any  part  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh. 
can  be  undertaken.  Up  to  the  present  time,  the  most  of  these 
questions  have  not  even  been  raised,  and  not  one  of  them  has  been 
answered  with  any  approach  to  correctness.  An  unscholarly  use 
of  "the  LXX"  has  been,  more  than  any  other  one  thing,  the  bane 
of  modern  Old  Testament  study ;  and  if  there  is  any  portion  of 
the  Old  Testament  in  which  the  consequences  have  been  especially 
mischievous,  that  portion  is  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  Those  who  have 
attempted  to  emend  the  Semitic  text  of  these  books  by  the  aid  of 
the  Greek  have  been  wont  to  take  at  random  any  seemingly  useful 
"reading"  of  the  nearest  available  text  of  the  canonical  Greek,  or 
of  I  Esdras,  choosing  in  each  case  either  codex  B  (one  of  the 
worst  possible  MSS,  as  it  happens)  or  "Lucian,"  as  the  need  of  the 
occasion  may  decide,  treating  all  alike,  and  usually  without  making 
any  attempt  to  criticize  the  Greek  itself,  or  to  go  behind  the  text- 
reading  of  the  edition  which  happens  to  be  used.  Few  of  those 
who  have  dealt  at  length  with  Chron.,  Ezra-Neh.,  or  I  Esdras, 
have  attempted  to  state  what  conclusions,  if  any,  they  have  reached 
in  regard  to  text  and  versions.  A.  Klostermann's  article  "  Ezra 
und  Nehemia,"  in  Hauck's  Realencyclopd(lie\  has  an  account  of 
the  several  versions  of  these  two  "books"  which  contains  a  good 
many  acute  observations  as  to  details,  but  does  not  give  much 
help  in  matters  which  are  of  primary  importance.  It  is  remark- 
able, moreover,  that  in  his  whole  discussion  he  should  make  no 
mention  at  all  of  the  I  Esdras  version.  Even  a  brief  examination 
of  this  "apocryphon"  might  have  shown  him  its  fundamental 
significance. 

An  introductory  word  in  regard  to  the  Hexapla.  I  have 
already  (above,  pp.  1-4)  touched  upon  the  status  of  the  Chron. - 
Ezr.  books  in  Origen's  great  work,  and  the  apparent  lack  of  Hexa- 
plaric  material  in  the  MSS  which  are  now  known.  As  for  Origen's 
fifth  column,  containing  his  "LXX"  text,  I  shall  show  in  the 
sequel  that  we  have  extremely  good  information  in  regard  to  it. 
Concerning  the  other  Hexaplaric  versions  of  these  books  next  to 


06  Ezra  Studies 

nothing  has  hitherto  been  known.  Field's  Hexapla  has  the 
appearance  of  containing  some  material  here,  but  really  gives 
hardly  anything  more  than  a  collation  of  L  with  the  received  text. 
Whether  the  pZws  of  L  is  Hexaplar,  or  not,  there  is  nothing  to 
show.  Of  specific  ascriptions  there  are  surprisingly  few,  and  these 
are  confined  to  the  books  of  Chronicles.  Supposed  readings  of 
Aquila  are  noted  in  I  Chron.  15:27;  25:1,  3;  29:25.  Marked 
with  the  2  of  Symmachus  are  readings  found  in  I  Chron.  5:  20; 
9:1;  11:5;  15:27;  21:10;  25:1,  3;  II  Chron.  12:7;  19:11; 
23:13;  26:5;  30:5;  32:5;  33:3;  34:22. 

The  absence  of  any  readings  from  Theodotion,  ordinarily  a 
favorite  among  the  secondary  translators  and  a  frequent  source  of 
variant  Greek  readings,  is  very  noticeable.  This  fact,  of  itself, 
might  well  have  suggested  to  students,  long  ago,  the  probability 
that  Theodotion  himself  was  the  author  of  our  standard  version  of 
Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  As  I  have  previously  remarked  (above,  pp.  3, 
7),  no  sure  trace  of  the  work  of  Aquila  or  Symmachus  in  the 
book  of  Ezra-Nehemiah  has  heretofore  been  found.  I  believe 
that  the  hand  of  each  of  these  two  translators  can  be  recognized 
in  one  or  two  places,  at  least,  and  have  no  doubt  that  a  careful 
search  would  reveal  other  instances.  In  all  probability,  the 
"Aquila"  and  "Symmachus"  columns  of  the  Hexapla  were  both 
duly  filled,  in  the  canonical  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.,  the  "Theodotion" 
column  alone  being  vacant.  In  I  Esdras,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  "LXX"  column  alone  was  filled,  all  the  others  remaining 
unoccupied. 

II.       THEODOTION    THE    AUTHOR    OF    OUR    "CANONICAL"    GREEK    VER- 
SION   OF    CHRONICLES-EZRA-NEHEMIAH 

I  have  more  than  once  stated  my  own  conviction  that  the  trans- 
lation of  the  Chronicler's  history  which  now  stands  in  our  Greek 
Bible  was  the  work  of  Theodotion.^  Others  who  have  held  and 
expressed  this  view  are  Grotius  (1611),  Whiston  (1722),  Pohl- 
mann  (1859),  and  most  recently,  Sir  Henry  Howorth;  see  above, 
p.  16.  No  one  of  these  scholars,  however,  excepting  the  first 
named,  has  been  able  to  bring  forward  any  direct  evidence  tend- 
ing to  establish  the  theory.  The  manner  of  the  argument  has 
been  simply  this:  'Our  Greek  version  of  the  Chronicler's  history 
bears  the  marks  of  a  late  origin,  especially  when  compared  with 

'•>  Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology,  London, 1903,  pp.  139  f. ;  above, 
pp.  3  f . 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       (M 

the  version  preserved  in  "First  Esdras."  Theodotion's  version 
of  Daniel  supplanted  the  older  translation,  in  the  Greek  Bible ;  it 
is  therefore  a  plausible  supposition  that  it  was  Theodotion  who 
made  the  later  translation  of  the  Chronicler's  books.'  Grotius, 
in  his  annotations  to  the  Old  Testament,  pointed  out  an  interesting 
bit  of  evidence,  though  in  siich  a  way  as  to  leave  some  doubt  as 
to  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  it.  In  a  note  on  II  Chron. 
35:6,  he  says  that  our  Greek  version  of  Chronicles  is  that  of 
Theodotion,  while  the  two  chapters  (35  and  36)  of  II  Chron. 
with  which  I  Esdras  begins  are  "from  the  Septuagint."  He 
also  adds:  "■  Theodoiionis  aniem  interpretationem  in  PavaU- 
pomenis  et  aliis  qidbusdani  libris  recejyit  Graeca  Eccleski.''''  He 
expresses  himself  cautiously  in  this  passage,  saying  nothing  either 
in  regard  to  the  remainder  of  I  Esdras  or  to  the  canonical  Ezr,- 
Neh.,  for  the  obvious  reason  that  the  bit  of  proof  which  he  hap- 
pens to  be  using  here,  namely  the  rendering  of  the  Hebrew  word 
ncS,  would  be  a  conspicuous  failure  in  Ezra  6:19  ff.  (=1  Esdr. 
7:10  ff.).  "Theodotion,"  he  has  just  observed,  very  acutely, 
"semper  vertit  (f)aa€K,  non  ut  alii  interpretes  irda-xa.''''^  The  pos- 
sible value  of  this  observation  is  apparent  when  we  notice  that  the 
form  4>aa€K  (or  rather  4>aa€x)  occurs  eighteen  times  in  the  book 

6  The  assertion  is  a  little  too  sweeping,  for  some  of  the  "other  translators  "  rendered 
the  Hebrew  word  in  still  other  ways,  though  Grotius  may  not  have  been  aware  of  the  fact. 
And  indeed,  from  the  citations  given  in  Field's  Hexapla  it  might  seem  that  the  translite- 
ration <;>ao-€x,  outside  the  books  of  Chronicles,  is  not  the  property  of  Theodotion. 
It  is  not  only  lacking  in  Field's  list  (pp.  xl  f.)  of  the  Theodotion  transliterations,  but  is  even 
attributed  to  Symmachus  in  the  three  passages  where  its  occurrence  is  noted  by  him, 
.namely  Ex.  12:11,  27;  Num.  9:2.  But  whoever  examines  carefully  the  material  collected 
in  Field's  footnotes  in  these  three  places  will  ascertain  the  following  facts :  (1)  According  to 
the  Syr.-Hex.  (by  far  the  most  trustworthy  witness  of  those  cited)  the  word  JIDD.  i"  Ex. 
12  :  27,  was  rendered  by  "the  LXX"  rrdffxa;  by  Aquila  v7rep/3o(7ts  ;  by  Symmachus  ).^^  Trdcrxa 
(not  <frao-ex,  as  Field  gives!),  the  difference  from  LXX  being  in  the  other  words  of  the 
clause;  and  by  Theodotion  "like  the  LXX."  In  12:11  the  renderings  are  the  same,  except 
that  Symmachus  is  said  to  have  had  iracxa  (not  "ijioo-ex"  !)  i"r<p/iiax')<^'«-  ('-)  Theodoret,  whom 
we  should  suppose  to  have  had  good  means  of  information,  says  that  Theodotion's  rendering 
wa8<^a<7-ex.  (3)  According  to  notes  found  in  a  few  codices,  in  Ex.  12:11  and  Num.  9:2,  the 
transliteration  <()ocr€x  is  attributed  to  Symmachus,  or  to  "Aquila  and  Symmachus."  Such 
attributions  as  these  last,  coming  from  unknown  hands,  are  notoriously  untrustworthy.  Tlie 
ancient  copyists,  scribblers,  and  annotators  were  as  careless  as  our  modern  ones,  which  is 
saying  a  great  deal.  False  ascriptions  abound,  and  each  one  is  likely  to  be  copied  into 
several  other  MSS.  Hence  most  of  the  evidence  of  "double  versions"  of  Aquila  (Field, 
pp.  xxiv  ff.)  or  Symmachus  (pp.  xxxvi  f.).  With  regard  to  the  rendering  of  nCE .  tlie 
transliteration  is  exactly  in  the  manner  of  Theodotion,  and  not  at  nil  in  the  manner  of  Sym- 
machus. Indeed,  the  use  of  this  barbarism  by  the  latter  translator  would  be  altogether  in- 
explicable. The  fact  is  probably  this:  Theodotion's  ittaaex  was  replaced  at  a  very  early  date, 
in  most  MSS,  by  ndaxa  (cf.  the  many  cases  of  this  kind  cited  below),  and  in  the  Theod.  text 
known  to  Origen  the  latter  word  only  was  found.  The  Theodotion  version  was  very  well  known 
and  much  used ;  then,  when  the  rejected  word  <t>a<rtx  survived  in  a  few  MSS,  it  is  natural  that 
it  should  have  been  attributed  by  some  to  the  work  of  Symmachus,  the  least  known  and 
used  of  the  later  Hexaplaric  versions. 


68  Ezra  Studies 

of  Chronicles,  but  nowhere  else  in  our  Greek  Old  Testament.  As 
for  the  one  passage  in  Ezr.-Neh.  in  which  the  passover  is  men- 
tioned, namely  Ezr.  6 :  19-21,  it  is  of  course  easy  to  suppose  that 
the  long  familiar  word  irdax^  was  substituted  at  an  early  date; 
there  were  many  such  substitutions  in  the  early  history  of  the 
Greek  Bible. 

The  problem  of  identifying  a  given  translation  as  the  work  of 
Theodotion  is  in  some  respects  a  peculiar  one.  Whoever  makes 
the  search  for  this  translator's  own  work,  with  the  purpose  of 
setting  apart  everything  that  could  be  called  characteristic  of 
him,  will  probably  be  surprised  to  find  how  little  in  extent  the 
material  really  is.  We  have,  it  is  true,  "Theodotion's  version"  of 
the  whole  book  of  Daniel ;  but  this  is  in  reality  merely  a  revision 
of  the  old  Greek  translation,  whose  renderings  and  construc- 
tions are  generally  retained,  the  alteration  consisting  mainly 
in  such  cutting,  shaping,  and  supplementing  as  to  make  it  fit 
closely  the  later  traditional  Hebrew  text.  In  the  case  of  the 
extensive  fragments  of  Theodotion's  version  of  Jeremiah  which 
have  been  preserved  (see  Swete,  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  Greek,  pp.  44-46)  it  is  not  known  whether  the  work  is 
merely  a  version,  or  an  independent  effort.  At  all  events,  there 
is  here  extremely  little  that  could  contribute  to  any  basis  of  com- 
parison with  such  a  book  as  the  Chronicler's  history.  The 
manner  of  the  author,  or  reviser,  in  his  attempt  to  hold  fast  to  the 
Hebrew,  is  indeed  apparent,  and  it  is  the  same  in  all  three  of  the 
versions  named:  Daniel,  Jeremiah,  and  the  Chronicler;  but  more 
definite  evidence  than  this  is  required.  The  comparison  of  the 
diction  of  our  Greek  version  of  Chron. -Ezr.-Neh.  with  that  of 
Theodotion's  part  in  Daniel  reveals  a  few  striking  coincidences, 
which  will  be  noticed  below,  as  well  as  the  obvious  general 
resemblance.  In  addition  to  the  material  already  mentioned,  we 
have,  for  our  knowledge  of  Theodotion's  work,  only  the  scattered 
renderings  of  his  in  various  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  which  have 
been  preserved  in  Hexaplar  codices.  It  might  therefore  seem  to 
be  a  very  difficult  matter  to  collect  material  sufficiently  extensive, 
and  sufficiently  characteristic,  to  serve  as  a  sure  basis  for  com- 
parison. If  we  were  dealing  with  ordinary  translators,  this  would 
be  true,  and  a  trustworthy  conclusion  might  be  despaired  of;  but 
fortunately  this  translator  has  one  peculiarity  so  pronounced  and 
so  well  understood  that  the  proof  can  be  rendered  complete. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       09 

As  students  of  the  Hexajjlar  versions  long  ago  observed, 
Tlieodotion's  chief  characteristic  is  his  tendency  to  irnnsUicvdie 
the  difficult  or  doulitful  words  of  his  Hebrew  text.  See  especially 
Field's  Hexdpla,  I,  xxxix-xlii,  and  Swete's  Iiitroditdion,  p.  40. 
Because  of  his  extreme  caution,  he  refuses  to  decide  in  cases  of 
uncertainty,  but  simply  writes  out  the  troublesome  Hebrew  word 
in  Greek  letters.  The  extent  to  which  he  has  done  this  is  very 
remarkable.  Field  gives  a  list  (pp.  xl  f.)  of  more  than  ninety 
words  of  this  kind,  collected  from  the  material  already  known  to 
us  asTheodotion's,  including  the  most  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Doubtless  this  number  could  be  considerably  increased, 
even  from  the  sources  which  we  already  have,  if  we  were  better 
able  to  criticize  them ;  moreover,  it  may  safely  be  taken  for  granted 
that  the  ancient  collectors  of  Hexaplaric  readings  generally  dis- 
regarded such  of  Theodotion's  transliterations  as  had  resulted 
from  an  obviously  corrupt  and  easily  corrected  text. 
Even  in  the  MSS,  indeed,  the  tendency  to  get  rid  of  these 
unnecessary  barbarisms  is  quite  marked;  see  below.  Now,  this 
very  same  striking  peculiarity  of  transliteration  is  found  in  the 
Greek  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the 
work,  and  with  the  examples  pretty  evenly  distributed.  The 
fact  has  not  hitherto  been  observed,  and  the  number  and  char- 
acter of  the  instances  will  probably  prove  a  surprise  to  Old 
Testament  scholars.  When  the  comparison  is  made  with  the 
similar  instances  collected  by  Field,  it  will  at  once  be  plain  that 
we  are  dealing  with  the  same  translator.  I  subjoin  a  list  of 
the  transliterations  of  this  kind  which  occur  in  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh., 
not  claiming  that  it  is  complete.  It  will  be  seen  that  it  includes 
examples  of  all  the  classes  of  instances  found  elsewhere  in  Theo- 
dotion. '  There  are  the  unusual  words,  such  as  "llSD  Ke(f>(f}ovp, 
D"'1^3n  OavvovpeL/x;  words  of  ambiguous  meaning  in  their  context 
like  "iSDn  aKx^X^Rj  ri1"l'i^"i"^  o-epaepcod ;  technical  terms  not  capable 
of  exact  translation,  such  as  DTlb:?  a\r)/xco$,  '^T\^  ^adoov.  Then 
there  are  the  many  cases  where  the  text  had  become  slightly 
corrupt.  In  a  considerable  number  of  the  examples  which  follow, 
the  difficulty  with  the  word  was  due  solely  to  the  confusion  of 
1  and  "^  by  copyists;  thus,  ^(oXrjXa  for  Hb'^b  i<^3,  /xedcoea-eifx  for 
Cirn^ri'J .  in  other  cases,  two  of  the  letters  of  the  Hebrew 
word  had  become  accidentally  transposed;  thus  a/SeBrjpeiix  for 
Cimn ,     fxedaxa^eifx     for     D^5<nnn'2 ,     ajxaaeveid    for    H":*- "in , 


70  EzEA  Studies 

7a/3j;?  for  n^:?.'  In  the  most  of  these  cases  of  text-corruption, 
the  true  reading  was  not  hard  to  tind,  and  almost  any  translator 
would  have  made  the  emendation  for  himself.  It  is  eminently 
characteristic  of  Theodotion  and  his  method  that  he  refused  to 
take  any  such  responsibility.  Then,  finally,  there  are  the  per- 
fectly well-known  words,  such  as  aiv,  yai,  yav,  /xavaa,  regarding 
whose  exact  meaning  or  use  in  certain  passages  the  translator 
may  have  been  in  doubt, ^  Concerning  the  occasional  procedure 
of  Theodotion  in  such  cases,  see  again  Field  and  Swete,  in  the 
places  named.  One  must  agree  with  Field,  that  there  are  some 
instances  in  which  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  find  any  suflScient 
excuse  for  the  transliteration. 
The  following  is  the  list:' 

1.  a^/3ov^      (See  no.  37.) 

2.  ajSeSr)     Ezr.  2:58.     For    ^W,    "servants."     In  the  phrase 

nab'iT  ^12^,  the  name  Solomon  was  not  recognized: 
viol  a^ehrj  ^eXfJia,  hence  the  ''l^y  was  cautiously  trans- 
literated. It  was  certainly  not  thought  of  as  forming 
part  of  a  proper  name.  (L  has  viol  tmv  SovXcov  laXo- 
ficov:  two  alterations.) 

3.  a^eSrjpeifx  adovKceLfi     I  Chron.  4:22.     MT   D^pTO   D^naiH  , 

"the  words  are  ancient." 

4.  a/3€tpa     Neh.   1:1.     m^nH,    "the  palace."     So  7:2,  ^eipa. 

(L  has  /3dpi<;  in  both  places.) 

5.  ayyaL     II  Chron.  26:9;  in  the  L  text  only.      For  S^^H  ,  "the 

valley."     See  also  no.  29,  and  below,  p.  80. 

6.  ayovyeip.     II  Chron.  9:10;  in  three  cursives  only;  see  below, 

p.  80.  MT  D^12^3bs;  (but  in  I  Kings  10:11  f.  D'S'^bi?:), 
"algum  wood." 

'<Oi  course,  such  instances  as  these  and  the  preceding  ones  would  generally  not  be 
recorded  by  the  ancient  collectors  of  Hexaplaric  readings.  The  fact  that  they  originated 
in  mere  blunders  was  apparent. 

8 In  the  case  of  the  transliteration  <|)ea,  for  HnS  .  "governor,"  it  may  be  that  Theodo- 
tion evaded  the  translation  because  he  was  not  quite  satisfied  with  any  of  the  ordinary 
readings  of  the  word :  o-Tparrjyd?,  eVapxos,  apxoiv,  -qy^ixiav  ;  or  because  he  did  not  wish  to  take 
the  responsibility  of  choosing  among  them.  It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  remark,  in  this  connec- 
tion, that  in  the  Greek  of  Hag.  1:1,  U,  the  word  nnS  is  not  rendered  at  all. 

9Tho  orthography  varies  considerably  in  the  MSS,  and  I  record  usually  only  one  form, 
without  wasting  time  over  the  vain  attempt  to  determine  the  original.  Of  course  the  varia- 
tions between  i  and  ti,  at  and  e.  etc.,  have  no  significance  whatever,  and  are  rarely  of  any  use 
even  in  determining  groupst)f  manuscripts.  Scribes  were  free  to  exchange  them  at  pleasure, 
and  did  so.  As  ei  is  used  most  commonly  (though  not  consistently)  for  the  long  l  sound  in 
our  best-known  uncials,  I  have  adopted  it.  The  plural  endings  -et^  and  -eii/  (the  latter 
apparently  later  and  due  to  the  influence  of  spoken  Aramaic)  are  also  frequently  exchanged 
in  the  MSS. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       71 

7.  a8(opr]6fx     Neh.  3:5.     MT  D^•7'^^J!,   "their  nobles/'      (L:  oi 

LCT'yypol  avTtav.^ 

8.  aOepaada     Ezr.  2:G3;   Nell.  7: G5,  70.     For  «nd^nn  (title). 

9.  aOovKiei/x      (See  no.  3.) 

10.  aiXa^jL     II  Chron.  3:4     MT  ob^X ,   "porch." 

11.  aiv     Neh.  2:14;  12:37;  in  the  Matter  passage  the  MS8  have 

alvelv.  For  "^y ,  "spring."  (L  has  in  both  cases  t>)9 
7r7?7%. ) 

12.  aXr^lKod     I  Chron.  15:20.      MT    VT^l^'J  .      (L:    irepl  tmv  Kpv- 

(fiicov,  as  in  the  Psalm-superscriptions.) 

13.  afjiaaevetd     I  Chron.  15:21.      MT    t^^ZrZZn .      (L:    -rrepl  t»'}9 

0780V;  cf.  Ps.  0:1;  12:1.) 

14.  apaa     I  Chron.  2:52.     For  nJ^^H  (MT  H^hn ,  "the  seer"). 

It  seems  impossible  to  determine  whether  Theodotion 
regarded  this  as  a  proper  name,  or  not.  The  original 
rendering  here  seems  to  have  been:  "^Kal  r^aav  viol  tw 
2ft)^a\  irarpl  K-apiaOLapei/x  apaa  ecrei  Afx/xavi(i)6,  '"^v/xatr- 
(f)e(od  K.api,a6Laeip,  AidaXeip,,  A\t<f>€i6€Cfx,  k.t.X.  See  nos. 
38  and  63. 

15.  apiriX     I  Chron.  11:22.     MT  bi^^nj^,  which  Theodotion  cer- 

tainly did  not  regard  as  a  proper  name.  (L  inserts 
ufou9,  from  the  Greek  of  II  Sam.  23:20.) 

16.  aaacf^eifi     I  Chron.  26:15,  17.     MT   D^SCi^,  "stores." 

17.  a<l>(^ovaa>d     II  Chron.  26:21.     MT    {ketih)    nT^rSH,    "sepa- 

rateness." 

18.  axe^a/a     Neh.   3:22.     For    ^SSH,    "the  circuit."      (L:    rod 

TrpwTOToicov,  corrected  from  a  reading    "liZUl . ) 

19.  axovx     IlChron.  25:18  (twice).     For  ninn,   "the  thistle." 

20.  ^aaXraafi     Ezr.   4:8,  9,  17.      For     D?!:   b:?^ ,    "reporter    of 

news." 

21.  ^a6(ov  {A  iSaSfov,^  ^arcov)  Ezr.  7:22.     For    ^Fin,    "baths" 

(the  liquid  measure). 

22.  /3aKxovpioL<;     Neh.  13:31.     For    D'-^^lSn ,   "firstfruits."'      (L: 

7rpo)Toy€vr]p,acnv.) 

23.  ^afia     I  Chron.  16:39;  21:29;  II  Chron.  1:13.     For  n'22  , 

"high  place." 

24.  /Seipa      (See  no.  4.) 

25.  ^€u-     for    "p,    "son."   in  compounds:    I  Chron.  11:34,  ^eve 

Acra/x,  for  D-TI  ""ZQ  (see  below,  p.  79) ;  see  also 
no.  33. 


72  Ezra  Studies 

26.  ^r)d-     for    VTH ,    "house,"  in  cases  where  it  is  evidently  a 

separate  word:  Neh.  3:10,  ^-qd  aya^apei/x  D^li^jtl  rT'2 ; 
3:201,  ^V^  e\iaaov/3  2^'Z^bi<  H^n  (Eliashib  named  in 
this  very  verse  as  the  high  priest,  and  cf.  vs.  1)  ;  3:24, 
/37J0  a^apia  H^ni^'  t^^D. ',  3:31,  ^i]d  avvadivei/x  n^2 
D^jT^Dn,  cf.  vs.  26!  (In  all  of  these  cases,  L  trans- 
lates the  word    ri^3.) 

27.  'ya/3r]<i     I  Chron.  4:9.     From  a  reading    yQS'D ,    rendered  &)? 

70/37^9,  where  MT  has  22^^,  "in  pain."  (L:  ev  ha- 
TTTCtxrei.) 

28.  7a^a     Ezr.  5:17;    6:1;    7:20.     For    J<7D:» ,    "treasure." 

29.  7ai     Neh.  2 :  15,  in  the  L  text  and  the  cursive  121 ;  3 :  13,  in  L 

only.    For  X^r»,  "valley."    See  also  no.  5,  and  below,  p.  80. 

30.  yau  o^a     II    Chron.    36:8.      For    N-T3?  "ij,    "the    garden    of 

'Uzza."  The  passage  containing  these  words  is  wanting 
in  MT,  and  also  in  I  Esdras,  but  certainly  stood  in  the 
Hebrew  text  from  which  Theodotion  translated;  see 
further  below.  The  phrase  occurs  also  in  II  Kings 
21:18,  26,  where  it  is  rendered  (in  all  the  Greek  texts) 
iv  TM  KrJTTO)  O^a. 

31.  yaa-lBaprjvo^     Ezr.   1:8.      For    12113,    "treasurer."      The  ter- 

mination -7]vo<;  suggested  by  ya^aprjvo';  (for  J^^Tj),  Dan. 
5:7,  11,  15,  etc.? 

32.  ryeSSovp     I  Chron.  12:21.     For    IMj,    "troop."      (The  same 

transliteration — origin  unknown — in  one  of  the  texts  of 
I  Sam.  30:8.  It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the 
ascription,  by  the  cursive  243,  of  the  rendering  avarpdix- 
/xaro'i  to  Theodotion,  in  I  Sam.  30:8,  is  correct.  Notice 
the  similar  mistake  —  this  time  concerning  Aquila  — 
recorded  in  Field's  Hexapla  on  II  Sam.  3:22,  in  regard 
to  this  same  word.  May  not  the  transliteration  be  Theo- 
dotion's  in  all  these  places?) 

33.  77;  ^ev  €vvofx     II  Chron.  28:3;  33:0.     For  DBH  p  «^3,  "the 

valley  of  the  son  of  Hinnom."  Cf.  no.  25;  also  nos.  5 
and  29.      (L  has  eV  ^dpayyi  Bevevvofi.^ 

34.  ycoXaO     II   Chron.   4:12,    13.     MT    nib,    "bowl-capitals." 

(L:   ra?  /Sda-ea.) 

35.  yo)\i]\a     Neh.  2:13.     MT    nVb  &^\-(n),    ("and  I  went  out 

through  the  gate  of  the)  valley  by  night."  (L  has 
yo)\i]Xa  vvKTO'iA 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       73 

36.  Ba^eip     II    Chron.    3:10;    4:20;    5:7,    9.     For   n"m ,    the 

"innermost  sanctuary"  of  Solomon's  temple.  This 
transliteration  is  used  by  others  than  Theodotion. 

37.  e^Sad  ajS^ov^     I  Chron.   4:21.     For    -pnn   mzr  ,    "nianu- 

factnre  of  fine  linen." 
S8.  €<T€t  I  Chron.  2:52.  For  ''Sn,  "half."  Immediately  below, 
in  vs.  54,  the  word  is  translated;  cf.  no.  03.  (The 
passage  is  lacking  in  the  L  text,  which  omits — because 
of  homoeoteleuton  —  the  last  three  words  of  vs.  52  and 
the  first  three  words  of  vs.  53.  In  both  A  and  B  the 
passage  is  badly  miswritten;    see  no.  14.) 

39.  €(f>ov8     IChron.  15:27.     For  113S,   "ephod."      (L:  iv  aroXr} 

fivcraivr].)  The  transliteration  occurs  outside  of  Chron. - 
Ezr.-Neh. 

40.  ^uKxo)     I  Chron.   28:11,  20.     MT,  in  vs.  11,    VSTDJ ,'"    "its 

treasuries."  (L,  in  both  verses:  twv  airodi^xoiu  avrov.) 
In  MT  the  word  and  its  context  are  missing  in  vs.  20, 
though  they  must  have  stood  there  originally  —  a  fact 
which  seems  to  have  been  generally  overlooked.  Neither 
in  his  Polychrome  Chronicles  (1895)  nor  in  his  Biicher 
der  Chronik  (1902)  does  Kittel  discover  that  our 
Hebrew  text  has  accidentally  lost  a  considerable  passage 
(more  than  a  dozen  words)  at  this  point.  Benzinger 
(1901)  does  no  better.  This  is  a  good  illustration  of 
the  way  in  which  "the  Septuagint"  is  commonly  used. 
The  passage  in  the  Greek,  in  its  original  form ,  reads  as 
follows:  Kal  ISov  rb  TrapdSeiyfxa  roi)  vaov  Koi  tov  oIkov 
avTOv  Kal  ^aK'xo)  avTOv  Kal  to.  vitipwa  Kal  ra<;  airodi'^Ka'i 
ra<i  eao)Tepa<i  Kal  tov  qIkov  tov  iXacrfxov,  Kal  to  TrapaSeLyp-a 
o'Ikov  Kvpiov.  The  necessity  of  this  to  its  context  is 
apparent  from  vs.  21  compared  with  vss.  11-13.  The 
omission  in  the  Hebrew  of  MT  was  caused  by  homoeote- 
leuton, the  passage  being  preceded  by  mrT'  7)^2  miZ? 
and  ending  with  T'^^^^  TT^  TTZZTi .  Tlie  translator, 
then,  actually  wrote  this  word  ^aKX(o  twice. 

41.  eavvovpei/x     Neh.   3:11;    12:38.     For    D^^Sn ,    "furnaces." 

Neh.  12:38  is  wanting  in  the  codices  A  B  S,  but  is 
present  in  many  cursives  and  in  the  L  text,  and  was 
included  in  Theodotion's  translation.     See  further  below. 

i«It  is  possible  that  the  original  transliteration  was  yav^aicxio,  and  that  the  flret  syl 
able  was  corrupted  to  rCiv  (as  in  cod.  H  in  vs.  11),  which  was  subsequently  dropped. 


74  Ezra  Studies 

42.  6epa(f)€L/x     II  Chron.  35:19.     For   D^Sin  ,   "teraphim" — but 

the  Hebrew  original  of  this  passage  is  now  lost;  see  no. 
44.  This  transliteration  is  used  by  others  than  Theo- 
dotion. 

43.  dcoSaOa      (most  MSS,  including  all  the  uncials,  dcoXaOa;    an 

early  blunder,  A  for  A)  Neh.  12:27.  For  ninin , 
"thanksgivings."      (L:    (eV)  ayaXXtda-ei.) 

44.  KaSijcreiijL      (?     So  cod.  121;    the  others  have  Kupeaeifj,^^)  II 

Chron.  35:19.  For  U^'^lp,  "temple-prostitutes."  The 
passage,  which  is  a  highly  important  one  for  the  history 
of  our  Hebrew  text,  is  found  neither  in  MT  nor  in 
I  Esdras.  See  below,  p.  88.  Observe  that  Theodotion 
has  the  transliteration  Kahrjaeifji  in  Judg.  5:21. 
^D.  /c€<i>(f>ovpT)  I  Chron.  28:17;  Ezr.  1:10;  8:27.  For  ^niS^ , 
"cups." 

46.  KoOwvoi     Ezr.  2:69.     For  rilDDD,   "robes."     (L:  aroXa^  kpa- 

TtKa<;.)      See  also  no.  69. 

47.  Xafx{^/j,^aav€     II  Chron,  22:1.     All  our  Greek  texts  are  cor- 

rupt here.  For  HDn^b ,  "for  a  raid."''^  Some  justifi- 
cation for  Theodotion's  transliteration  here  may  be  found 
in  the  ambiguity  of  the  expression,  which  I  believe  to  have 
been  mistranslated  by  every  modern  scholar  as  well  as 
in  the  ancient  versions.  This  strange  word,  Xafji(^fx)aav€, 
immediately  following  oV Apa^e'i,  was  of  course  supposed 
to  be  a  proper  name,  and  was  accordingly  made,  by  some 
copyist,  to  end  with  a  9.  aXajxaave^  became  aXafia^ove^;, 
a  form  attested  by  several  MSS.  A  and  B  have  [oi 
"ApaySe?  ot]  aXtfia^ov€i<i.^^  (L:  Kal  rcov  Afia^ovtetfi  iv  ry 
Trape/x/SoXf/,  a  characteristic  specimen  of  the  crimes  com- 
mitted by  this  recension.) 


11  The  Greek  letters  S  and  p  .ire  frequently  confused  by  scribes;  some  other  examples 
will  be  given  in  the  sequel.  There  is  therefore  room  for  doubt  as  to  the  original  form  of 
this  transliteration.  Kittel,  Biblia  Hebraica,  on  II  (Ihron.  35:19,  prints:  "/capa(t)o-«t/^  = 
D'^T^'lp  "  (**'') ;  but  in  this  he  is  certainly  mistaken. 

12 Cf.  XSSb,  "for  war,"  "to  give  battle,"  the  use  of  the  verb  HSn.  "to  attack," 
in  Ps.  5.3:6;  I  Mace.  5:49  f.,  etc.,  and  of  713013   in  II  Chron.  18:  33=  I  Kings  22:34,  etc. 

i^Hence  in  14:14  (15)  the  gloss,  tous  "Afia^ot'eis  (!),  derived  solely  from  the  pas- 
sage 22:1,  has  come  into  the  Greek  text  (all  recensions).  Bcnzinger,  Commentary  on 
Chron.,  would  emend  the  Hebrew  text  of  14:13f.  accordingly.  But  there  is  no  excuse  for 
"emending;"  the  context  sliows,  as  plainly  as  a  context  can  show  anytliing,  that  Qliy  is 
right  as  it  stands.  The  connection  between  tlie  two  passages  would  bo  made  by  any  reader  ; 
the  enemies  of  Israel  in  both  cases  are  the  Philistines  and  the  neighboring  Arabs. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       75 

48.  fjiavaa     II  Cliroii.   7:7;    Xeh.   13:5,   9.     For    11";:^,    "meal 

offering."  (L  substitutes  in  each  case  the  word  dva-ia.) 
Observe  that  in  Dan.  2:40  Theodotion  has  substituted 
this  transliteration  for  the  older  translation  dvaia^. 

49.  fjLaa-avai    II  Chron.34:22.   For  HD'aJp,  "the  second  (district)." 

50.  fiedaxa/SeciM     (the  correct  reading  in  codd.  56,  121)  I  Chron. 

21 : 20.  For  D^J5Snn-J,  " hiding  themselves."  (L :  iropev- 
o/xeVoy?,  a  reading  which  evidently  originated  in  a  cor- 
ruption of  the  fcpvl36fx€vot  which  most  MSS  have  here.) 

51.  fx,€6(t)€(T€ifi     Ezr.   2:62.     For    D'^ar'n*^ ,    "listed  by   geneal- 

ogy."     (L:  yeveaKoyovvTe'iA 

52.  fi€T€^aae  (?)      I  Chron.  18 : 8.     For  nnntpp ,  " from  Tibhat" 

(name  of  a  city).  It  is  evident  from  the  way  in  which 
the  following  word  is  translated  that  Theodotion  did  not 
regard  this  as  a  proper  name.  L  has  i/c  t^?  ra^aaO, 
translating  the  preposition;  and  this  translation  (evi- 
dently secondary)  has  also  found  its  way  into  the  Egyp- 
tian text:    A,  e/c  tt}?  ixare^eO;    B,  e'/c  tt}?  /x€Ta/3i)xa<i.^* 

53.  fiexoivcod     II    Chron.    4:14,    twice.      For    ni:i- - ,    "bases." 

Observe  that  Theodotion  gives  us  this  same  translitera- 
tion in  Jer.  27:19  (Greek  34:15). 
U.  vaxaXv     I  Chron.  11:32.     For    ^brD  ,    "wadys"(?). 

55.  o(f>aX     II  Chron.  27:3;  33:14;    Neh.  3:26,  27;  11:21.     For 

bs:?(ri),    the  "hill"  in  Jerusalem. 

56.  (Tal3ax(od     II  Chron.  4:12;   only  in  the  cursives  56  and  121; 

see  below,  p.  80.      For    ntaiZJ ,    "nets." 

57.  craxcoX      (  ?  A  (Tax<>>v,   B  crax(*iX-      The  reading  of  the  cod. 

Basiliano-Vaticanus,  N  [XI  in  H.  and  P.]  is  given  as 
aai/3i/3aaaxo)X  ( ! )  ;  the  first  part  of  this  being  probably 
the  proper  name  Acre/Seia,  from  the  beginning  of  vs.  19?) 
Ezr.  8:18.    For  b"'j;,  "prudence."    (L  has  [ai/^/jJo-ui/ero?.) 

58.  aepaepfoO     II  Chron.  3:16.      For   nin'jJTj: ,   "chains."      (L: 

dXvaiScoTci. ) 

59.  aoo/x     I    Chron.    29:2.      For  Dlj^i:' ,  name    of    a   stone.      (L: 

[  X  t'^o  y?  ]   ovvxo^  .) 
QO.  <T(0(f)ap     I  Chron.  15:28.     For  ^Si"^ ,  "trumpet." 
61.  <T(0(f>[€]p€Cfi     I  Chron.  2:55;  in  the   L  text  only;  see  below. 

For  D^HilC,  "scribes." 

1*  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  tliat  the  X  of  tliis  form  is  the  transliteration  of  n  •  It  is 
merely  one  of  the  customary  blunders  of  codex  B.  M«T</3aafl  was  miswritten  ixtrafixae  (x  for 
a,  several  otlior  examples  arc  Kiveii  in  the  sequel),  and  so  on. 


76  Ezra  Studies 

62.  TCKxeif^     II  Chron.  9:21;  in  the  L  text  only ;  see  below.     For 

D^^S^n  ,  "peacocks." 

63.  vixaac^ewd     I  Chron.  2:53.     For  ninSo:*^^  ,  "and  the  families 

(of)."  The  same  word  is  translated  in  vs.  55,  just 
below — the  context  there  being  so  plain  as  to  leave  even 
Theodotion  no  room  for  doubt!  (The  L  text  has  acci- 
dentally lost  the  first  words  of  vs.  53;  see  Nos.  14  and  38. 
Both  A  and  B  are  corrupt  here.) 

64.  (jiaa-ex     II  Chron.   30:1,  and  often.      For  ncS ,    "passover." 

The  old  Grreek  version  of  the  Chronicler's  history  had 
7rd(Txa;  see  II  Chron.  35:1,  6-13,  16-18,  in  I  Esdras 
(1:1,  6ff.,  16-19).  The  large  number  of  occurrences  of 
the  word  in  these  two  chapters  of  the  Theodotion  version 
was  what  kept  it  from  being  changed,  even  in  the  L 
recension.     See  also  above,  p.  67,  note. 

65.  </)ea  (?)     Neh.   5:14,    15,   18;    in    the    Egyptian   text    only. 

For  nns  ,  "governor."  The  word  occurs  four  times  'in 
these  three  verses,  and  appears  at  first  sight  to  have  been 
transliterated  three  times  and  translated  once.  This 
would  be  a  truly  Theodotionic  proceeding;  still,  it  is 
perhaps  more  likely  that  the  word  was  originally  translit- 
erated in  all  four  cases.  At  present,  through  accidental 
corruption  and  attempted  correction,  the  forms  originally 
written  have  been  nearly  obliterated;  only  close  scrutiny 
can  find  the  trace  of  them.  The  Egyptian  text  of  the 
verses  in  question  now  reads:  '^'Atto  t?}?  r)fjL€'pa<;  f;?  ive- 
TeiXaro  fioL  elvat  eh  apxpvTa  avTwv  (Dns)  ....  €70)  koI 
ol  aSe\(f)Oi  fxov  I3iav  avroiv  (SlMSn  Drib)  ovk  e(f)a<yov^  '''kuI 
Ta9  /Qta?  ( riirisn )  ra?  Trpwra^i  a?  irpo  ifxov   i/3dpvvav  eir'' 

avTOv<;,  K.T.X "^   .    .   .    .   kuI  crvu  tovtol<;  dprov<i  Tri<i 

^ta<i  (nnstl  Drib)  ovk  i^i]Tr]aa.  The  Greek  yields  in 
each  of  these  clauses  a  passable  sense,  the  word  /3i'a 
meaning  "extortion"  or  "fruit  of  extortion."  But  the 
latter  phrase  would  be  a  singularly  free  rendering  ( !)  even 
of  nnsn  Dnb ,  especially  for  Theodotion ;  and  at  the 
beginning  of  vs.  15  and  the  end  of  vs.  18  it  is  quite 
plain  that  ^la  stands  simply  as  the  equivalent  of  JlHS  .^'' 
Beyond  question,  Theodotion  wrote  (f>ea  in  these  three 

'^So  it  is  given,  in  fact,  in  both  Schleusnor  and  Tromm.    Klostormann,  among  modern 
scholars,  has  recogiiizod  the  fact  of  a  transliteration. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       77 

cases  (at  least) ;  by  one  of  the  most  common  of  scribal 
errors  this  became  /3ea ;  the  rest  followed  naturally.  The 
original  readings  were  presumably:  in  vs.  14,  ciprov  tov 
(f>ea,  instead  of  ^lav  avTMv •,^'^  vs.  15,  (f)€co6  instead  of  /3ja9; 
vs.  18,  dprov  TOV  (f)ea  instead  of  aprov  rrj^  /3ia<;.  (^The  L 
text  has  substituted  translations  in  each  of  the  three 
cases:  aprov  tj}?  rjyefiovia^  in  vss.  14  and  18,  and  ap^ovre? 
in  vs.  15.) 

66.  %a/Ltai^et/i.     Ezr.    8:27.       The    source    of    this    is    the    word 

n^±jn-b  (MT.  D^2jmxb),  "in  drachmas,"  which  was 
divided  □"!!"«5  Ipi^  and  characteristically  rendered  et? 
TTjv  686v  'x^a/xaveifi.  (In  cod.  A  this  has  been  improved 
to  e.  T.  6.  Spa^f^oiveiv ;  while  in  the  L  text  the  correction 
has  gone  still  farther,  changing  the  last  word  to  8paxp-d^.) 

67.  %e/?ou/3efAt     II   Chron.  3:8  ff.,   and  elsewhere.     For  D"Z^"'D , 

"cherubim."  This  transliteration  is  not  peculiar  to 
Theodotion. 

68.  X^XX^P  (^)      I  Chron.  16:3;  only  in  the  L  text,  which  reads 

XeXx^^Pi  presumably  because  of  a  common  scribal  error  in 
the  Greek.  For  "'SS ,  "loaf."  A  and  B  have  aprov. 
Cf.  No.  18,  where  the  same  word  (meaning  "circuit"), 
written  with  the  article,  is  transliterated  by  ax^X^P- 

69.  xo^a)i/ft)6'     Neh.  7:70,  72.    For  nimD ,  "robes."    Very  likely 

the  Kodwvoi  (?)  of  Ezr.  2:69  (above.  No.  46)  originated 
in  this  same  transliteration.  (L,  in  all  three  cases, 
(Tro\a<i  leparLKa<i.^ 

70.  xw^ape^  (-0)^?)      II  Chron.  4:12  (twice),  13.      For   ni^nb , 

"capitals." 

The  regularity  with  which  these  words  are  distributed  through 
the  history  is  worthy  of  notice.  Leaving  out  of  account  the  repe- 
tition of  such  frequently  used  words  as  (f)aaex  and  %e/9oi;/8€i/u,  the 
number  of  occurrences  in  I  Chron.  is  28;  in  II  Chron.  32;  in 
Ezra  16 ;  and  in  Neh.  30. 

To  those  who  have  examined  Theodotion's  transliterations  in 
connection  with  the  other  extant  traces  of  his  work,  this  list  will 
be  conclusive.  The  large  number  of  these  words,  and  their  charac- 
teristics in  detail,  added  tothe  facts  which  have  already  been  noticed, 
place  the  matter  quite  beyond  the  reach  of  doubt.  It  is  to  be 
remarked  also  that  a  few  of  the  words  in  the  list  are  already  known 

If  How  easy  the  corruption  of  apTov  to  outui*'  would  be  may  be  seen  from  vs.  1.5,  where 
codex  A  has  avroU  for  apTou. 


78  EzKA  Studies 

from  other  sources  to  have  been  used  by  this  translator ;  such  are 
KaSrjaeifi,  fiavaa,  /i€%coi/ft)^,  (^aaex,  and  probably  ^eSSovp.  To  make 
the  demonstration  still  more  complete,  it  is  further  to  be  observed 
that  in  the  few  points  of  contact  between  the  Theodotion  element 
in  Daniel  and  our  Greek  translation  of  the  Chronicler's  work  there 
are  some  striking  instances  of  identical  usage.  One  of  these  is 
the  case  of  the  word  fiavaa,  noticed  above.  Another  is  the  use  of 
Xti/r  (a  favorite  word  with  Theodotion)  as  the  rendering  of  y^T2  ; 
found  only  in  II  Cliron.  32:30;  33:14;  Dan.  8:5;  in  the  last- 
named  passage  substituted  for  the  a-rro  Sva/xcov  of  the  older  version, 
which  certainly  needed  no  correction!  Equally  striking  is  the 
substitution  of  evtahai,  as  the  rendering  of  ymn^D  ,  in  Ezr.  6:10 
and  Dan.  2:46;  in  both  cases  correcting  the  airovhat  of  the  older 
translation.  Notice  also  the  peculiar  rendering  airo  fxepovi  for 
ri^p"^ ,  only  in  Dan.  1 : 2  and  Neh.  7 :  70 ;  the  use  of  the  verb  avveri- 
XeLv,  and  that  of  the  noun  ijKaivia.  Undoubtedly  other  examples 
of  the  kind  can  be  found ;  I  have  made  no  thorough  search. 

In  the  case  of  gentilic  names,  it  is  Theodotion's  custom  to 
transliterate  exactly,  instead  of  using  the  Greek  adjective  endings. 
The  latter,  however,  have  been  substituted  later  in  a  good  many 
instances,  sometimes  in  the  Egyptian  text  and  very  often  in  L. 
Thus,  in  Neh.  2:19  the  original  rendering  had  6  Apcovei,  6  Afi- 
fxcovei,  and  6  ApajSet;  where  L  offers  6  'VLpoovini'^,  6  'AfM/xMvnrj'i, 
and  6  "Apayjr.  An  example  of  a  passage  in  which  nearly  all  the 
Greek  texts  have  made  the  change  is  Ezr.  3:7,  where  for  "Sidon- 
ians  and  Tyrians"  cod.  121  has  ^thavip,  and  Sw/at/u.  (probably 
almost  exactly  what  Theodotion  wrote) ;  B  has  'E-qBafxeiv  and 
IcopeLv;  all  the  other  MSS  have  substituted  the  Greek  adjective 
forms.     Many  other  instances  of  the  kind  could  be  given. 

In  some  cases  where  Theodotion  was  in  doubt  whether  the 
word  before  him  was  a  gentilic  name  or  not,  he  cautiously  repro- 
duced the  Hebrew  article  by  the  Greek  a.  In  such  cases  it  was 
inevitable  that  those  who  cared  for  the  Greek  text  should  often 
have  taken  the  further  step  of  substituting  the  Greek  article. 
For  example,  in  Ezr.  2:57  Theodotion  wrote  viol  ^aa[e)pa6  (or 
^ax^pad'^)  aae/Scoeip,  {Wp.lTj),  as  is  attested  by  the  Egyptian 
Greek  tradition.  But  in  the  L  text  we  find  viol  ^uKepad  tmv 
'Ea^coei/x.  Of  course  accidental  corruption  of  these  unfamiliar 
forms  took  place  from  time  to  time.  Thus,  in  I  Chron,  18:17 
Tov  Xeprjdi  was  Theodotion's  rendering.     I  was  miswritten  for  X, 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chroxicles-Ezra-Xehemiah       79 

as  occasionally  elsewhere,  and  in  a  cursive  manuscript  6  became 
0),  as  in  a  great  many  other  places.  Hence  the  tmv  iepeoov  in  l)oth 
L  and  the  ordinary  Egyptian  text  (but  not  in  A). 

It  remains  to  be  said  in  general,  regarding  Theodotion's  trans- 
literations (and  especially  those  of  ordinary  nouns),  that  in  all 
probability  some  of  them,  and  perhaps  a  considerable  number, 
have  been  lost.  Of  course,  in  a  version  which  came  into  common 
use  as  a  part  of  the  Greek  Bible,  these  uncouth  words  were  very 
soon  felt  to  be  seriously  disturbing,  especially  in  the  many  cases 
where  the  Hebrew  word  and  its  meaning  were  perfectly  well 
known.  We  should  therefore  suppose  that  the  process  of  remov- 
ing these  peculiar  creations  of  Theodotion  would  have  begun 
almost  immediately.  We  can  see  the  process  going  on  in  the 
texts  which  are  known  to  us.  In  the  Lagarde  recension,  it  is  the 
rule  (not  systematically  carried  through,  to  be  sure)  that  these 
transliterations  are  replaced  by  translations;  and  we  can  see  the 
same  tendency  actively  at  work  even  in  the  most  conservative 
group  of  manuscripts.  Observe,  for  example,  what  has  taken 
place  in  I  Chron.  28:17,  where  the  unusual  word  (■')"1135  occurs 
six  times.  The  L  recension  (!)  has  preserved  Theodotion's  Kecjj- 
<f)ovp{i])  in  three  places;  cod.  A  has  it  once  ;  cod.  B  has  dropped 
it  altogether.  Similarly,  in  Ezr.  7:22  ^adcov  "baths"  (liquid 
measure)  has  been  replaced  in  B  by  airodriKOiv^  but  not  in  A;  in  Ezr. 
2:69  KoOcovoc  (so  B)  becomes  in  A  %6Tft)i^a<?.  Or  to  take  the  case 
of  a  still  more  common  word:  in  I  Chron.  11:34  WXTl  "'33  is 
rendered  by  Theodotion  ^ev[v)aL  acra/x;  this  becomes  in  A  and  L 
(but  not  in  i^  B)  viol  a.  Many  other  examples  might  be  given.'' 
It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  this  process  had  already  begun 
before  the  period  represented  by  the  earliest  manuscript  testi- 
mony which  we  have.  A  few  of  the  rejected  words,  after  having 
been  actually  dropped  from  all  the  texts  in  common  use,  were 
preserved  in  stray  cursives,  or  rescued  again  by  the  L  recension 
(thanks  to  its  conflating  tendency).'"     An  excellent  example  is 

I'll)  I  Chron.  26:16  it  seems  to  be  the  case  that  A  has  preserved  the  original  rendering, 
Tci  26<<>i€t/oi,  for  D'^STDb<  while  tho  improvement  eU  Sevrtpov  (from  a  late  reading  Q^'TTb  ) 
has  been  adopted  not  only  by  the  .MSS  of  the  L  recension  but  also  by  the  most  of  the  "  Egyp- 
tian "  MSS,  including  15.  The  supposition  that  A's  is  the  corrected  text  here  would  be  far 
less  plausible,  judging  from  what  has  taken  place  elsewhere  in  the  MSS  of  these  books. 
L's  double  rendering  here  contains  an  obvious  correction  according  to  MT,  n"iDT135  being 
translated  by  toU  TrpoSupots. 

i**  Hence,  presumably,  the  presence  of  the  word  (lakeiii  in  I  Chron.  9:18,  only  in  L. 
Whence  it  comes  I  do  not  know,  but  it  is  probably  a  corrupt  form  of  one  of  Theodotion's 
transliterations.    The  eia  is  pretty  certainly  a  reproduction  of  the  nSH  which  stands  hero 


80  Ezra  Studies 

the  rendering  of  the  phrase  J^^Sri  ^S'TT  "valley  gate"  in  Neh. 
2:15.  Here  the  L  text  presents  both  Koi  rnxrjv  iv  ttj  irvXr]  r?)? 
(fxipayyo^  and  kuI  8ir}\6ov  Sia  tt}?  TrvXrj'i  yuL,  the  position  of  the 
latter  clause  showing  that  in  this  recension  it  was  inserted 
later.  Something  very  similar  has  taken  place  in  II  Chron. 
26:9,  where  (in  the  L  text)  ayyai  and  Trjf  (f)dpayyo<i  form  a 
doublet,  though  in  this  case  it  is  the  translation  which  seems 
to  be  secondary.  No  one  but  Theodotion  would  be  likely  to 
transliterate  in  such  a  case  as  this;  and  that  it  was  actually  he 
that  did  it  appears  to  be  rendered  certain  by  Neh.  3:13,  where  L 
gives  for  the  same  phrase  imlij  rrjv  7ri\i]v  yat.  But  in  all  three 
of  these  passages  the  word  yai  has  quite  disappeared  from  the 
manuscripts  of  the  standard  text !  A  case  in  which  the  L  text  has 
retained  a  transliteration  which  has  already  been  dropped  by  all 
the  MSS  of  the  "Egyptian"  group,  with  the  single  exception  of 
codex  121,  is  the  word  crw^epet/x,''  I  Chron.  2:55.  In  the  ordinary 
text  it  has  been  rendered  by  ypanfiarewv.  Another  example  is 
the  word  %e%%a/9,  I  Chron.  16:3.  Other  words  of  this  nature 
which  have  narrowly  missed  oblivion  are  re/c^ei/^,  II  Chron.  9:21, 
preserved  in  L;  ayovyeifi,  II  Chron.  9:10,  found  in  one  L  MS, 
93,  and  (in  the  form  yovyetfi)  in  the  cursives  56  and  121;  and 
aa^axood,  II  Chron.  4:12,  preserved  only  by  56  and  121.  These 
words  are  given  by  Field  in  his  list  [loc.  cif.,  pp.  xlf. )  as  of 
"anonymous"  origin;  but  it  must  now  be  evident,  I  think,  that 
they  are  survivals  from  Theodotion's  version. 

In  other  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  moreover,  traces  of  Theo- 
dotion's transliteration,  hitherto  unrecognized  as  his,  are  undoubt- 
edly to  be  found.  His  version  must  have  been  felt  to  be  an 
indispensable  one,  meeting  a  greater  variety  of  needs  than  any 
other,  and  its  influence  upon  the  standard  Greek  text  was  probably 
much  greater  than  we  ordinarily  suppose.  Its  readings  must 
have  supplanted  the  other  renderings  in  many  places,™  and  as  an 
inevitable  result,  the  ascription  of  "Theodotion"  readings  to 
"LXX,"  and  vice  versa,  was  not  infrequent.  This  happened  even  in 

in  the  Hebrew;  the  remainder  may  be  due  to  dittography  of  some  sort,  involving  the  follow- 
ing iv.    No  one  of  the  commentators  on  Chronicles  appears  to  have  noticed  it. 

''•* It  appears  in  various  forms:  (r(o<;)r)pet/u,  in  93,  108,  and  121;  (ruKinpeifi.,  in  19;  (runrcptix.  in 
the  retransliteration  from  an  Armenian  codex  given  in  H.  &  P.    Lagarde  edits  o-u)(|>peiM. 

20 To  take  a  single  example  from  the  Prophets  —  the  one  which  happens  to  occur  to  me 
at  the  moment:  in  Isa.  44:8  wo  can  see  the  process  at  work ;  the  phrase  iJ-n^i  n\ava<T6e  has 
been  taken  over  from  Theod.  into  the  text  of  cod.  B,  but  is  not  in  the  older  text  of  this  verse 
represented  by  codd.  AJJQ,  etc.  Fortunately  the  Hexaplar  MSS  here  make  the  matter 
perfectly  plain. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       81 

the  case  of  transliterations,  passages  containing  them  having  been 
taken  over  into  the  current  version  at  an  early  date,  particularly 
in  the  books  Sam.-Kings,  in  which  the  textual  tradition  made  so 
many  difficulties.  One  example  of  the  kind  has  already  been 
given;  see  above,  on  jeSSovp.  Precisely  similar  in  their  history, 
as  I  believe,  are  the  four  other  renderings  given  by  Field  [loc. 
cit.,  p.  xlii)  as  cases  in  which  "LXX"  transliterates  while 
Theodotion  translates.  One  of  these,  for  example,  is  II  Sam.  17 :  19 
mS"in,  rendered  "LXX  apacfxod,  Theod.  7ra\dda<i.^^  Another  is 
II  Kings  16:17  tlljb'-,  rendered  "LXX  fxex(ovQ}d,  Theod.  vtto. 
aTijpi'y/xaTa.^^  See  the  note  on  this  latter  word  in  the  list  above. 
From  the  evidence  which  we  already  have,  it  seems  to  me  that  we 
are  fully  justified  in  reversing  these  ascriptions,  assuming  that  in 
these  cases,  at  least,  the  later  version  had  contaminated  the  earlier. 
The  important  question,  whether  in  preparing  his  version  of 
the  Chronicler's  history  Theodotion  was  revising  an  older  trans- 
lation, or  not,  should  probably  be  answered  in  the  negative.  We 
have  as  our  guide  his  proceeding  in  the  case  of  Daniel;  and  what 
he  does  there  is  to  retain  to  a  remarkable  degree  the  wording  of 
his  predecessor,  in  spite  of  extensive  alterations  in  the  form  of  the 
text.  A  comparison  of  I  Esdras  with  the  corresponding  part  of 
Theodotion  does  not  show  any  such  close  resemblance.  The  coin- 
cidences of  rendering  seem  to  be  only  such  as  would  be  expected 
in  two  translations  of  the  same  Hebrew  text,  while  the  diflPerences 
are  so  many  and  so  great  as  to  argue  strongly  against  any  depend- 
ence upon,  or  even  acquaintance  with,  the  older  version.^'  We 
know  of  no  translation  of  Chr.-Ezr.-Neh.  before  the  time  of  Theo- 
dotion, other  than  the  one  represented  by  our  I  Esdras,  and  it  is 
not  likely  that  there  was  another.  Our  last  witness  to  the  exist- 
ence of  this  version  in  its  completeness  comes  from  Josephus. 
After  his  day,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  we  meet  with  it  only  in  the 
"I  Esdras"  fragment.  Soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
era,  in  all  probability,  the  old  Greek  version  of  the  Chronicler's 
history  disappeared  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  with  the  exception 
of  the  one  fragment  which  happened  to  be  rescued  from  a  single 
codex  (see  above,  p.  36).  This  fragment  may  have  escaped 
Theodotion's  notice  altogether,  or  he  may  not  have  thought  it  of 
importance  for  his  purpose.     At  all  events,  when  he  put  forth  his 

21  Why,  to  take  a  single  instance,  should  Theodotion  have  rendered  the  word  S"13J{ 
(MT  SniDS)  in  Ezr.  5:3  by  the  senseless  \opriyiat>,  if  he  had  known  that  it  had  already 
been  rendered  (I  Esdr.  t):4)  by  the  obviously  suitable  <rT«Y>)i'7 


82  Ezra  Studies 

own  translation,  it  bad  a  clear  field;  and  as  a  matter  of  course,  it 
was  soon  adopted  as  apart  of  "the  Septuagint"  and  its  authorship 
was  quite  forgotten.  If  it  is  indeed  an  independent  translation 
of  these  books,  as  I  believe,  it  is  doubly  important  as  the  one  great 
example  of  the  methods  of  this  interpreter,  this  time  not  a  mere 
reviser,  but  free  to  work  in  his  own  way. 

III.       THE    TWO    MAIN    TYPES    OF   THE    TEXT 

1.  First  Esdras 

I  have  described  briefly  in  one  of  the  preceding  essays  (above, 
pp.  31-36)  the  two  differing  "editions'"  of  the  Chronicler's 
history  which  are  known  to  us,  giving  some  account  of  their  origin. 
Since  an  interval  of  300  years  lay  between  them,  and  the  later 
edition  was,  generally  speaking,  independent  of  the  former  one, 
the  comparison  of  them  is  obviously  a  matter  of  great  importance 
for  purposes  of  textual  criticism.  But  before  they  can  be  thus 
used  in  any  satisfactory  way,  it  is  necessary  to  know  to  a  consid- 
erable extent  the  history  of  their  transmission ;  the  state  of  preser- 
vation of  the  various  texts;  the  age,  the  character,  and  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  translations;  the  relative  excellence  and  mutual 
relations  of  manuscripts.  The  following  observations  will  serve 
as  a  beginning. 

The  old  Greek  translation  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  was  made  not 
long  before  the  middle  of  the  second  century  b.  c.  The  direct 
evidence  of  this  is  found  in  the  quotation  from  the  Greek  historian 
Eupolemus,  in  a  work  composed  about  150  b.  c.  (see  Schiirer, 
Gesckichte^,  III,  351  f.).  The  historian  is  telling  of  the  building  of 
Solomon's  temple,  and  quotes  from  the  letter  of  Hiram,  king  of 
Tyre,  in  the  form  of  it  which  is  found  only  in  II  Chron.,  chap.  2» 
The  text  of  the  passage,  corresponding  to  II  Chron.  2:12fF,,  is 
given  in  Swete's  Tntroducfion,  p.  370,  and  reads  as  follows: 
€vXoyrjr6<;  6  ^eo?  o?  rov  ovpavov  koX  rrjv  'yrjv  e/CTicrev,  o?  eiXeTO  avOpo)- 
TTOv  ')(^pi]aTov  e'/c  ')(^prjaTOv  av8p6<i  ....  Kal  ap'x^iTeicTovd  aoL  air- 
earaXKa  dvdpwirovTvpiov  eK  fn]Tp6<i  'lov8aLa<;  eV  t^9  <f)vXi)<}  Adv.  Here 
is,  beyond  all  question,  a  somewhat  free  citation  from  a  Greek 
version  of  Chronicles.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe,  and  no 
reason  to  doubt,  that  this  translation  was  the  same  one  of  which  a 
part  has  survived  in  the  "I  Esdras"  fragment."    All  the  evidence 

22  It  might  seem  useless  to  attempt  to  argue  from  the  wording  of  so  free  a  citation  as 
this  one  evidently  is.    But  the  opening  phrase,  "Blessed  be  the  God  who  made  heaven  and 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chroxicle.s-Ezra-Nehemiah       83 

whicli  we  liave  seems  to  show  that  the  I  Esdras  transhitioii  was 
made  as  early  as  the  second  century  b.  c.  Some  of  the  indications 
of  this  nature  have  already  been  mentioned ;  others  will  appear  in 
the  sequel. 

The  home  of  the  translation  may  well  have  been  Egypt. 
There  is  one  interesting  fact,  at  least,  which  seems  to  show  that 
the  translator  lived  among  people  to  whom  the  geography  and 
history  of  Syria  were  somewhat  unfamiliar.  The  technical  term 
"^run  ^ny  (Aram.  n^HD  ^33?),  "the  district  beyond  (west  of)  the 
river  (Euphrates),"  is  in  every  instance  — 14  times  in  all  —  ren- 
dered by  KoiXt]  ^vpia  koI  ^otviKtj,  "Coele-Syria  and  Phoenicia," 
a  rendering  which  occurs  nowhere  else.'^^  The  term  "beyond  the 
river"  was  one  which  had  long  been  familiar  throughout  Palestine 
and  Syria,  and  Theodotion's  rendering,  irepav  rod  irorafjiov,  would 
have  been  understood  anywhere  between  Judea  and  Persia.  But 
in  Egypt  the  phrase  was  not  so  well  known. 

From  the  materials  which  we  have,  we  are  well  able  to  judge 
as  to  the  character  of  the  translation.  It  is  a  faithful  renderinsr, 
of  the  kind  to  which  we  are  accustomed  in  the  older  parts  of  the 
Greek  Old  Testament.  The  translator  has  a  wide  knowledge  of 
Greek,  uses  a  large  vocabulary,  and  very  often  chooses  Greek 
idioms  instead  of  simply  copying  the  Semitic  forms  of  speech.  In 
rendering  two  verbs  connected  by  "and,"  for  example,  he  frequently 
employs  the  participle  for  one  of  the  two,  where  Theodotion  and 
his  kind  would  follow  the  original.  On  the  other  hand,  he  generally 
sticks  desperately  to  a  corrupt  text,  hesitating  at  no  nonsense  in 

earth,"  seems  to  have  been  transferred  verbatim,  and  it  is  at  least  interesting  to  observe  that 
we  have  here  one  of  the  characteristic  marks  of  difference  between  the  rendering  of  Theodo- 
tion and  that  of  the  old  Greek  version.  Tlieodotion  has  tlio  phrase  before  him  in  this  passage 
and  in  Neh.  9:6,  and  both  times  renders  by  (Troi-qtnv  (Hob.  riTCy).  In  I  Esdr.,  the  words  are 
found  only  in  6:12,  and  the  rendering  there,  as  here,  is  by  kti^hv  (a  form  of  the  Aramaic 
verb  ~2y  being  read). 

23  It  is  important  to  observe  that  this  is  the  old  and  official  terminology  used  by  the 
Greek  historians  and  geographers  from  the  fourth  century  onward.  "Coele-Syria  and 
Phoenicia,"  or  even  "Coele-Syria"  alone,  included  the  whole  Syrian  province  west 
of  the  Eupliratus,  i.e.,  exactly  IHSn  "iDy .  An  Alexadrian  translator  of  the 
second  century  B.C.  would  have  been  sure  to  use  it;  see  II  Mace.  3:5,  8;  -4:4  for  a 
striking  illustration;  and  cf.  also  I  Mace.  10:69,  and  the  numerous  passages  in  Polybius 
cited  by  HOlscher,  "Palftstina  in  der  persischen  und  hellenistischen  Zeit,"  in  Sieglin's 
Quellen  und  Forschungen  zur  alien  Geschichte  und  Geographic,  Heft  .5  (1903),  pp.  7  f.  Notice 
also  that  "Coele-Syria  and  Phoenicia"  is  the  term  used  in  the  petition  of  Onias  to  Ptolemy 
Philometor,  Josephus,  Antt.,  xiii,  3,  1.  This  terminology  went  out  of  general  use  before  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  era.  Strabo,  xvi,  2,  2,  notes  that  according  to  a  nomenclature 
which  some  (.tvioi  Si)  had  used,  "Coele-Syria"  included  the  territory  of  the  Jews,  Edomites, 
and  Philistines.  His  testimony  shows  that  in  the  last  century  B.  c.  and  thereafter  "  Coele- 
Syria"  was  ordina  rily  applied  only  to  the  district  between  Lebanon  and  Anti-Lebanon. 
Thus  HOlscher,  p.  12.    His  conclusion  is  the  same  one  which  I  had  myself  reached. 


84  Ezra  Studies 

"translating"  it.  His  performances  in  really  difficult  places — 
and  in  many  that  are  not  difficult  at  all — are  like  those  of  a  modern 
schoolboy,  and  we  may  expect  to  find  at  least  a  few  stupid  blun- 
ders (so  they  seem  to  us)  on  every  page.  This  is  fortunate,  for 
it  enables  us,  here  as  elsewhere,  to  see  what  Semitic  words  and 
phrases  the  Greek  was  trying  to  render.  One  who  is  thoroughly 
familiar  with  Hebrew  and  Aramaic  and  also  with  the  habits  of 
these  translators  will  generally  be  able  to  see  what  text  lay  behind 
this  version — after  he  has  once  determined  the  original  form  of 
the  Greek. 

The  Semitic  text  thus  rendered  seems  to  have  been  not  partic- 
ularly good,  but  one  which  had  suffered  considerably  from  care- 
less copyists.  In  many  cases,  indeed,  its  readings  are  manifestly 
superior  to  those  of  our  massoretic  text,  and  there  is  no  place  in 
which  its  help  can  safely  be  dispensed  with ;  but  on  the  whole, 
the  type  of  text  which  it  represents  is  inferior  to  that  represented 
by  our  canonical  books.  Aside  from  all  the  accidental  corruption 
which  it  has  suffered  through  careless  transmission,  it  seems  now 
and  then  to  have  been  deliberately  "revised,"  as,  for  example,  in 
the  opening  verses  of  the  section  dealing  with  the  official  corre- 
spondence in  the  time  of  Xerxes  and  Artaxerxes,  I  Esdr.  2:15. 
Wherever  the  probabilities  are  otherwise  evenly  balanced,  in  the 
conflict  of  I  Esdras  readings  with  those  of  our  canonical  recension, 
the  latter  has  the  presumption  in  its  favor.  Some  instances  of  the 
occasional  wide  divergence  of  the  I  Esdras  text  from  that  which 
later  became  the  standard  will  be  given  below. 

Several  scholars  have  called  attention  to  a  certain  resemblance 
between  the  Greek  of  I  Esdras  and  that  of  the  old  ("LXX") 
version  of  Daniel.  See  Swete's  Introduction,  pp.  48  f.,  and 
Lupton's  preface  to  his  First  Esdras,  in  the  Speaker's  Commen- 
tary. Most  noticeable  is  the  occurrence  of  the  same  phrase,  koX 
airripeiaaTO  avra  ev  rw  elhwXiw  avrov,  in  both  I  Esdr.  2:9 
and  Dan.  1:2,  as  has  been  observed.  I  add  one  or  two  other  note- 
worthy examples.'^^  The  phrase  "his  house  shall  be  made  a  rub- 
bish-heap (^blD),"  which  occurs  in  Ezr.  6:11;  Dan.  2:5;  3:29, 
is  interpreted  by  the  old  version  in  all  three  places  to  mean  "his 
house  shall  be  confiscated."  In  I  Esdr.  6:31  the  rendering 
is:  Kol  TO,  virdpxovra  avrov  ehat  ^aaiXiKa,  and  in  Dan.  2:5:  Kal 

2^1  sive  only  those  which  I  happen  to  have  noticed  and  remembered;  I  have  made  no 
search  for  thorn. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chroxicles-ICzra-Nehemiah       85 

ava\i]cf)drjcr€Tai  v/jlmu  ra  virdpxovra  et?  to  jBaaiXiKov.  In  Dan.  3:9(3 
he  writes:  ?;  oiKia  avrov  8rj/xevdr]cr€Tai,  which  means  the  same."^ 
Again,  in  Dan.  3:2  we  have  in  the  old  version  (but  not  in  Theo- 
dotion)  the  same  list  of  officers,  a-arpciTraf:,  a-TpaTr]yov<;,  TOTrdpxa<i 
Kol  virdrovi,  which  appears  in  the  same  order  in  I  Esdr.  3: 14; 
as  also,  lacking  the  last  member,  in  3:2.  Since  the  Greek  words 
are  by  no  means  the  settled  equivalents  of  the  Aramaic  terms,  this 
coincidence  can  hardly  be  accidental.  Notice  also  the  use  of  the 
word  fiavidKq<;,  "golden  chain,"  in  I  Esdr.  3:0;  Dan.  5:7,  29; 
the  frequent  occurrence  of  p.eytardve'i,  ''magnates,"  in  both  I  Esdras 
and  Daniel;  the  phrase  iTroirja-e  So'x^rjv  fieydXrjv,  I  Esdr.  3:1; 
Dan.  5:1  (not  in  Theodotion) .  In  Swete's  list  {Introduction, 
pp.  310  f.)  of  the  unusual  Greek  words  which  are  found  in  certain 
books  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  following  also  are  mentioned  as 
occurring  in  both  I  Esdras  and  the  old  translation  of  Daniel: 
dva7r\r]p(ocn<i,  SoyfiaTL^etv,  /xejaXeLOTri^,  7r€c6ap)(^eiv. 

These  instances  seem  to  render  one  of  two  conclusions  certain: 
either  the  old  Greek  translation  of  the  Chronicler's  history  strongly 
influenced  that  of  the  book  of  Daniel;  or  else  both  were  the  work 
of  one  and  the  same  translator.^''  The  latter  is  the  more  probable 
supposition;  notice,  for  instance,  how  the  two  passages  Dan.  2:5; 
3:29,  compared  with  I  Esdr.  6:31,  prove  that  the  translator 
worked  independently,  and  was  not  simply  following  an  older 
version. 

It  is  not  likely  that  this  translation  ever  circulated  widely. 
The  Chronicler's  history  in  its  original  Semitic  form  seems  to 
have  been  little  known,  and  was  certainly  very  little  esteemed,  in 
any  part  of  the  Jewish  world  for  two  or  three  centuries  after  the 
date  of  its  composition.^'  From  the  time  when  the  Story  of  the 
Youths  was  seen  to  be  secondary,  and  the  abridged  recension  made 
its  appearance,  the  older,  unabridged  texts  and  versions  lost  ground; 

2i  So  far  as  I  know,  the  important  testimony  which  these  translations  (or  mistranslations) 
give  to  the  existence  of  a  Syro-Palestinian  root  51D,  corresponding  to  the  Arabic  (jLj  ,  jLaJ  , 
"  take,  obtain,"  has  never  been  noticed.  It  is  the  same  root  whose  verb  (52"' .  jussive)  occurs 
in  the  last  line  of  the  Tabnit  inscription,  as  I  liope  to  show  more  fully  elsewhere. 

SB  In  that  case,  the  translation  of  Daniel  was  probably  made  soon  after  the  publication 
of  the  original,  inasmuch  as  the  Chronicler's  history  was  translated  before  the  middle  of  the 
second  century  b.  c.  An  early  date  for  the  old  Greek  Daniel  is  also  rendered  probable  by  tho 
Greek  version  of  I  Mace.  1:54,  in  which  dependence  on  the  Greek  translation  of  Daniel  is 
certain,  as  well  as  the  fact  that  the  words  quoted  had  long  been  familiar. 

27  Very  likely  its  true  character  was  well  understood,  at  the  first.  If  that  were  the  case, 
it  would  not  be  surprising  that  even  its  one  valuable  part,  the  story  of  Nehemiah,  should 
have  made  little  impression. 


86  Ezra  Studies 

and  finally,  when  the  official  text  was  created,  this  old  Greek  ver- 
sion, already  near  to  extinction,  passed  out  of  sight.  There  is  no 
evidence  that  any  secondary  version  was  ever  made  from  it,  in  its 
entire  state,  and  we  know  it  only  from  the  fragment  which  survived 
under  the  name  "First  Esdras."  The  history  of  the  transmission 
of  this  fragment,  in  manuscripts  and  versions,  is  unlike  that  of  any 
other  part  of  the  Greek  Old  Testament,  though  the  old  Greek 
Daniel  offers  a  close  parallel  in  many  respects.  It  has,  of  course, 
been  far  less  intluenced,  in  its  transmission,  by  the  Hebrew-Aramaic 
text  than  its  canonical  fellows.  Their  presence  beside  it  has  gen- 
erally saved  it  from  editorial  "correction"  since  the  establishment 
of  a  standard  text,  and  it  is  not  at  all  likely  to  have  suffered  from 
such  correction  before  that  time.  Accordingly,  the  Hebrew- 
Aramaic  that  can  be  shown  to  lie  behind  our  I  Esdras  may  gen- 
erally be  accepted  as  representing  a  text  which  existed  before  the 
middle  of  the  second  century  b.  c.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is 
evidence  that  the  Greek  text  of  this  translation  was  somewhat 
carelessly  handled  during  the  first  centuries  of  its  existence,  and 
it  is  easy  to  be  too  confident  in  arguing  from  the  Greek  to  the 
Semitic.  In  dealing  with  the  plus  and  minus  of  I  Esdras,  espe- 
cially, great  caution  is  necessary ,'^^  Moreover,  ever  since  '^ First 
Esdras'"  and  "Second  Esdras'"  were  first  placed  side  by  side  in 
manuscripts  of  the  Greek  Bible,  the  danger  of  contamination,  in 
either  direction,  has  been  present;  it  is  remarkable,  indeed,  that 
the  better  types  of  text  should  show  so  little  evidence  of  such  cor- 
ruption. It  is  only  in  the  L  text  (see  below)  that  this  is  a  serious 
matter;  there,  the  contamination  of  I  Esdras  has  gone  so  far  as 
to  render  the  text  all  but  useless  for  critical  purposes. 

The  text  of  I  Esdras,  like  that  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah, 
is  known  to  us  in  two  principal  recensions,  which  will  be  described 
below.  The  one  of  these  may  conveniently  be  called  "Egyptian," 
and  the  other  "Syro-Palestinian."  Of  the  secondary  versions 
made  from  the  I  Esdras  Greek,  the  Syriac,  the  Ethiopic,  and  the 
Latin  are  the  only  ones  requiring  mention  here.     The  Syriac,  made 

28  Not  a  few  of  the  German  scholars  who  have  dealt  with  I  Esdras  have  relied  on  the 
text  of  Fritzsche  (Libri  Vet.  Test,  apocryphi  graece,  1871).  But  Fritzsche's  eclectic  text  is 
built  on  no  sound  principles,  and  his  apparatus  is  untrustworthy  at  every  point.  Those 
very  marks  — includinR  not  only  misspellinRs  but  also  erratic  readings  — which  give  the 
surest  critical  guidance  are  habitually  omitted  by  him;  while  many  of  the  readings  of 
codices  A,  B,  H,  and  others,  which  he,  fails  to  record  at  all  are  beyond  question  the  original 
ones.  Those  who  road  tlie  Greek  Apocrypha  for  pastime  will  find  Fritzsche's  text  compara- 
tively smooth  and  agreeable;  but  those  who  are  engaged  in  exact  studies  can  make  no  use 
of  it. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chroxicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       87 

by  Paul  of  Telhl,  and  the  Etliiopic  represent  the  Eii^y[)tian  recen- 
sion, and  are  of  considerable  value;  the  Latin,  derived  from  a 
Syrian  text,  has  also  some  critical  importance.  These  will  receive 
further  mention  in  the  sequel. 

2.   The  Stamlavd  Text  of  the  Second  Ceuturrj  A.  D. 

The  text  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah  which  was  taken  as  the 
official  one  seems  to  have  been  carefully  selected.  It  was  one  from 
which  the  Story  of  the  Youths  had  been  cut  out,  and  in  which  the 
three  wandering  chapters  of  the  Ezra  narrative  were  allowed  to 
remain  in  the  book  of  Nehemiah  (above,  pp.  30  fP.).  It  was 
presumably  one  which  bore  evidence  of  being  more  trustworthy  in 
details  than  the  most  of  its  fellows.  So  far  as  we  are  able  to  judge, 
it  was,  indeed,  comparatively  "sound,"  especially  in  the  book  of 
Ezra-Nehemiah ;  though  differing  considerably  from  what  the 
Chronicler  originally  wrote.  The  separation  of  Ezra-Nehemiah 
from  Chronicles  had  either  taken  place  already,  or  else  was  accom- 
plished at  this  time.  When  Theodotion  made  his  translation,  the 
division  was  already  effected. 

As  witnesses  to  the  readings  of  this  "standard"  recension  we 
have:  (1)  the  massoretic  text;  (2)  the  Greek  of  Theodotion; 
(3)  the  Latin  of  Jerome.  We  have  the  great  good  fortune  to 
know  the  habits  of  each  of  these  two  translators,  and  can  thus 
reason  from  version  to  original  with  an  assurance  which  would  not 
otherwise  be  possible.  As  Jerome  made  his  translation  near  the 
end  of  the  fourth  century,  its  value  for  text-critical  purposes  is 
very  small;  it  almost  everywhere  agrees  verbatim  with  our  mas- 
soretic text.  Theodotion's  Greek,  on  the  other  hand,  bears  inter- 
esting witness  to  the  fact  that  the  massoretic  text  is  by  no  means 
identical  with  the  "standard"  text  of  the  second  century  a.  d. 
The  manner  in  which  even  an  official  recension  can  become  cor- 
rupted, even  within  a  short  time,  is  well  illustrated  here.  The 
text  rendered  by  Theodotion  has  suffered  many  accidental  changes, 
and  a  few  which  look  like  deliberate  revision ;  so  also  has  that  of 
the  massoretes.  One  example  of  the  kind  has  already  been  pointed 
out  (above,  p.  73);  in  I  Chron.  28:20,  Theodotion's  Hebrew 
contained  a  passage  of  considerable  length  which  has  been  lost, 
by  a  mere  copyist's  error,  from  our  MT. 

Another  instance,  and  one  of  especial  interest,  is  the  long  pas- 
sage which  in  our  Greek  Bible  is  appended  to  II  Chron.  35:19 


88  Ezra  Studies 

(see  above,  p.  74).  Examination  shows"*  that  this  was  taken 
bodily  from  II  Kings  23 :  24-27 ;  but  no  one  seems  to  have  observed 
that  the  borrowing  did  not  take  place  in  the  Greek  ver- 
sion, but  in  the  Hebrew  original.  Theodotion  had  all  this 
before  him,  in  the  text  which  he  rendered;  moreover,  the  word 
D""inp  ,  which  he  transliterated  by  Ka8r)(reifi[  ?),  is  not  attested  in 
II  Kings  23:24  by  MT  or  any  version,  though  it  appears  to  be 
the  older  reading  as  contrasted  with  the  D"'iI^pTr  which  is  given 
there.  What  adds  materially  to  the  interest  of  the  case  is  the 
fact  that  the  old  Greek  version  bears  witness  to  still  another 
Hebrew  text  at  this  point.  The  passage  in  I  Esdras  (1:21  ff.) 
reads  as  follows:  P'^kuI  wpOoiOt}  ra  epya  'IcocreLOv  ivcoiriov  tov  Kvpiov 
avTOv  iv  Kaphla  7r\r]peL  €ua€/3eia<i.  '' ical  ra  Kar  avrov  he  ava'yd- 
'ypairrei  iv  toU  ep^irpoadev  'X^povoa,  irepl  ....  TOiv  i^ixapTqKOTCov  koI 
rjae^rjKOTCov  ek  rov  Kvpiov  irapa  irav  edvo<i  Koi  ^acnXeLav,  Koi  iXvirrj- 
<rav  avrov  iv  alaOr^aei'  Koi  ol  \6yoL  rov  Kvpiov  avecrTrjcrav  iirl 
'lapa'q'K.  '^Kal  fMera  iracrav  ttjv  irpd^iv  tuvttjv  'Icoaeiov^  cruve^r) 
^apaco  ^aaiXea  kt\.,  the  end  of  the  bracketed  section  being  the 
point  at  which  agreement  with  the  other  texts  begins.  The  first 
glance  at  this  Greek  version  makes  the  whole  matter  plain.  We 
have  here  what  the  Chronicler  himself  originally  wrote, 
but  in  mutilated  form,  a  passage  of  some  length  having  been  lost 
from  the  Hebrew  by  accident  at  the  point  where  I  have 
inserted  the  four  periods.  The  Greek  translator  rendered  as  well  as 
he  could;  but  the  passage  was  hopelessly  spoiled,  and  indeed  made 
even  worse  than  useless,  for  as  it  now  reads  it  seems  to  class  Josiah 
among  the  most  wicked  of  kings !  Hence  the  bold  measure  of 
cutting  out  the  entire  passage  from  Hebrew  texts.  In  the 
copy  which  lay  before  Theodotion  this  had  been  done,  and  the 
resulting  gap  had  been  filled  from  II  Kings.  In  our  massoretic 
text  the  excision  has  been  made  and  the  gap  left  unfilled;  but 
certain  tell-tale  words  are  added  which  not  only  testify  eloquently 
to  the  fact  of  the  lacuna,  but  even  hint  at  the  nature  of  the  miss- 
ing passage.     When  our  Hebrew  text  proceeds  (vs.  80) :    "'"irii^ 

'TjI  n^'i-ra  i^h'a  isd  riby  [n-'an  in«  in^-^r^^^  ^sn  "iirs  nsT  bs, 

comparison  with  the  two  Greek  versions  shows  beyond  all  ques- 
tion what  was  meant  by  the  words:  "After  all  this  work  which 
Josiah  did  in  setting  the  temple  in  orders     The  allusion  is  to 

291  am  not  sure  to  whom  it  shows  anything.    Our  modern  commentators,  whether  on 
Chronicles  or  Esdras,  seom  to  have  failed  to  notice  the  matter. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       89 

some  such  passage  as  the  one  translated  by  Theodotion,  which 
immediately  preceded  these  words.  And  finally,  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  the  "standard  text"  of  the  second  century  A.  d.  must 
either  have  been  identical  here  with  Theodotion's,  or  else  have 
resembled  the  fragmentary  one  preserved  in  I  Esdras.  The 
phenomena  can  be  explained  on  either  supposition,  but  the  latter 
is  evidently  the  more  probable  one. 

A  third  example  of  these  more  important  variations  in  the  tra- 
dition is  found  in  II  Chron.  80:8,  another  passage  in  which  we 
are  able  to  compare  I  Esdras.  Here,  after  the  statement  that 
'the  rest  of  the  acts  of  Jehoiakim  are  written  in  the  book  of  Kings,' 
Theodotion  proceeds:  '^kuI  eKoiixrjO-q  ^IcoaKelfjL  fiera  tmv  irarepwv 
avTOv,^  Kal  ird(f>rj  iv  'yav  o^a  /lera  tmv  irarepcov  avTOv•^  Koi  i/Sa- 
aCXevaev  kt\.  The  bracketed  passage  is  wanting  in  both  MT 
and  I  Esdras,  but  was  certainly  in  the  Hebrew  text  of 
Chronicles  which  lay  before  Theodotion  (see  above, 
p.  72).  Whatever  we  may  think  of  its  origin  —  and  especially, 
of  the  statement  regarding  "the  garden  of  Uzza" — the  fact  of  its 
existence  ought  at  least  to  be  made  known  in  our  commentaries 
and  "critical"  editions  of  the  Hebrew  text. 

Another  example,  of  a  somewhat  different  character.  In  the 
list  of  returning  exiles,  found  in  I  Esdr.,  chap.  5,  Ezr.,  chap.  2, 
Neh.,  chap.  7,  there  is  one  point  at  which  the  accidental  omission 
of  two  or  more  names  is  made  especially  easy  by  the  proximity  of 
similar  or  nearly  identical  forms:  n^jH  Aya^a  and  23^  AyalS, 
2py  and  3t3p(?).  In  I  Esdr.  5:29  f.  we  have  the  passage  in 
what  seems  to  be  its  original  form,  with  the  names  Aya^a,  Akov^, 
Ovra,  Krjra^,  Ayafi.  In  Ezr.  2:46  the  names  Ofra,  KijTa/3,  are 
wanting  in  all  the  texts  known,  and  therefore  presumalily  were 
not  found  at  this  point  in  the  official  text  of  the  second  century 
A.  D.,  their  loss  being  due  to  the  carelessness  of  a  copyist.  In  Neh. 
7 :  48  the  most  of  the  Greek  manuscripts,  including  codices  A  and 
S  ,  contain  all  the  names;  in  MT,  and  also  in  a  few  Greek  codices, 
including  B,  the  last  four  names  of  those  mentioned  above 
have  fallen  out  accidentally  for  the  obvious  reason  just  given. 
The  names  Oura  and  Krjra^,  therefore,  which  are  now  not  repre- 
sented anywhere  in  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament,  were  present  in 
the  Hebrew  rendered  by  Theodotion.     It  cannot  be  held  that  they 

3uThi9  clause  is  found  also  in  II  Kings  24:6;  and  it  is  customary  in  both  Kings  and 
Chronicles  to  use  this  formula  in  speaking  of  any  king  who  dies  a  natural  death  while 
occupying  the  throne. 


90  Ezra  Studies 

were  inserted  from  I  Esdras,  in  the  Greek  translation,  because 
(1)  such  an  insertion  is  altogether  unlikely;  (2)  if  made,  it 
would  certainly  have  been  in  Ezra,  chap.  2,  not  in  Neh.,  chap.  7; 
(3)  the  only  form  attested  by  any  I  Esdras  text  is  Krjra^,  while 
in  the  Theodotion  texts  we  have  everywhere  Krjrap.  It  is  remark- 
able that  our  commentators  and  critics  of  the  Hebrew  text  should 
not  notice  the  testimony  of  the  Greek  in  Neh.  7:48.  All,  appar- 
ently, omit  even  to  look  at  the  footnote  in  Swete;  codex  B  is 
"the  Septuagint."" 

These  illustrations  will  suffice.  The  "official"  text  differed  in 
some  important  particulars  from  that  of  our  massoretes  and  also 
from  the  text  of  Theodotion,  although  both  were  derived  from  it. 
A  satisfactory  restoration  of  it  is  generally  possible,  however,  by 
the  use  of  these  two,  with  occasional  aid  from  other  sources.  Of 
course  the  numerous  minor  variations,  due  to  the  usual  accidents 
of  transmission  and  defects  of  translation,  are  taken  for  granted. 
Sometimes  Theodotion,  and  sometimes  MT,  has  preserved  the 
better  reading.  The  latter  deserves  the  preference,  on  the  whole. 
The  restoration  of  Theodotion's  Hebrew- Aramaic  text  is  in  theory 
a  comparatively  easy  matter,  since  we  know  how  close  a  rendering 
he  was  wont  to  make,  and  since,  because  of  the  laie  date  of  his 
work  and  the  nearness  of  our  oldest  manuscripts  to  his  time,  we 
can  put  unusual  confidence  in  the  traditional  Greek.  In  fact, 
however,  a  good  deal  of  close  study  is  often  needed  in  order  to  find 
out  what  "the  traditional  Greek"  is.  And  when  it  has  once  been 
found,  the  danger  of  blundering  in  constructing  from  it  a  new 
Semitic  text  is  very  great,  even  under  these  most  favorable  circum- 
stances. 

IV.    NOTES    ON    MANUSCRIPTS    AND    VERSIONS 

Fortunately,  the  history  of  the  transmission  of  the  three 
"books,"  Chronicles,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  is  one  and  the  same  his- 
tory, generally  speaking.  They  have  stood  side  by  side,  from 
the  first,  sharing  the  same  fate,  whether  in  translation  or  in  man- 
uscript tradition.  Especially  in  the  Greek  codices  which  contain 
these  books,  it  can  be  seen  that  they  all,  including  I  Esdras, 
have  come  down  to  us  through  the  same  lines  of  descent.  That 
which  is  seen  to  be  true  of  codex  A,  or  of  codex  B,  or  of  the 

a'  It  is  quite  characteristic  of  the  L  recension  that  it  should  expunge  these  two  names 
both  in  I  Esdras  and  in  N  ehem  iah  — since  nothing  in  the  Hebrew  corresponds  to 
them! 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       91 

grouping  of  certain  cursives,  in  I  Chronicles,  for  exam[)le,  will  be 
found  to  hold  good  for  I  Esdras  or  Nehemiah.  That  which  can 
be  proved  regarding  a  translation,  or  a  recension,  in  one  part  of 
the  history  will  be  true,  speaking  broadly,  in  every  other  })art. 

1.  The  Super ioritj)  of  the  A  Manuscripis  to  those  of  the  B  Group 

Theodotion's  translation  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  was  not  made 
until  (at  least)  the  middle  of  the  second  century  a.  d.  Our  oldest 
Greek  codices  date  from  a  time  only  two  or  three  centuries  later 
than  this,  and  some  one  or  more  among  them  might  easily  have 
been  copied  from  manuscripts  belonging  to  the  translator's  own 
time.  Moreover,  these  books  were  already  a  part  of  "Sacred 
Scripture"  at  the  time  when  the  version  was  made,  and  the  need 
of  a  careful  tradition  of  the  Greek  text  was  already  beginning  to 
be  keenly  felt.  We  should  therefore  expect  to  find  Theodotion's 
Greek  pretty  well  preserved,  in  general;  and  to  be  able  to  recog- 
nize in  some  manuscript,  or  group  of  manuscripts,  a  text  closely 
approximating  to  that  which  came  from  the  translator's  own 
hands.  And  in  fact,  both  of  these  expectations  are  realized. 
Thanks  to  the  multitude  of  proper  names  in  every  part  of  the 
Chronicler's  history,  the  grouping  of  manuscripts  is  relatively 
easy;  and  because  of  Theodotion's  many  peculiar  translitera- 
tions, which  subsequent  editors  liked  to  get  rid  of,  it  is  often 
possible  to  distinguish  at  a  glance  the  original  reading  from  the 
later  one. 

Among  the  Greek  manuscripts,  those  which  contain  the  L 
text  form  a  very  conspicuous  group  by  themselves.  These  are 
the  cursives  19,  93,  108,  with  the  occasional  addition  of  others.''^ 
This  peculiar  recension  wdll  be  described  below,  and  may  be 
passed  over  here. 

All  the  other  manuscripts  may  be  divided  roughly  into  two 
main  groups.  The  one  of  these  has  for  its  constant  members  the 
uncials  B,  5<,  and  N,^''  the  cursive  55  (almost  an  exact  duplicate 
of  B) ,  and  is  supported  by  the  Syro-Hexaplar  and  Ethiopic  ver- 
sions. The  other  grou[)  is  led  by  the  uncial  A,  and  may  be  said 
to  include  all  of  the  remaining  cursives,  though  it  must  not  be 

■'■-I  use.  of  course,  tlio  notation  of  Holmes  and  Parsons,  wherever  the  contrary  is  not 
expressly  stated. 

33Tlie  codex  Basiliano-Vaticanus,  numbered  XI  by  Holmos  and  Parsons.  It  is  hardly 
correct  to  speak  of  this  manuscript  as  a  "constant"  member  of  the  group,  to  be  sure,  for 
in  Chronicles  and  I  Esdras  it  seems  to  occupy  a  peculiar  position;  see  below. 


92  Ezra  Studies 

inferred  from  this  that  the  group  is  homogeneous.^*  The  charac- 
teristic of  the  manuscripts  and  versions  of  the  B  group  is  the 
remarkable  fidelity  with  which  they  reproduce  the  archetype  from 
which  they  all  were  derived,.  They  carry  us  back — and  evidently 
not  very  far  back — to  a  single  codex,  whose  multitudinous 
errors,  including  even  the  most  glaring  blunders  of  copyists,  are 
everywhere  faithfully  repeated.  Among  these  half-dozen  wit- 
nesses, the  best  text  is  given  by  codex  !}< ,  so  far  as  it  is  preserved ; 
that  of  codex  B  is  the  worst.  As  for  the  MSS  of  the  "A  group," 
they  present  no  such  uniform  type,  but  differ  among  themselves 
after  the  usual  manner  of  O.  T.  Greek  MSS,  though  in  relatively 
slight  degree.  That  is,  we  find  in  them  just  the  variety  which 
we  should  expect  to  find  in  a  group  of  codices  derived  from 
Theodotion's  translation.  The  best  text  in  this  group  is  that  of 
codex  A. 

The  current  (and,  so  far  as  I  know,  unchallenged)  opinion  as 
to  the  best  Greek  text  of  the  books  Chronicles,  Kzra,  and  Nehe- 
miah  is  that  expressed  by  Kittel,  Biicher  der  Chronik,  p.  24, 
middle:  "B  hat  nun  trotz  vieler  Schreibfehler  doch  im  ganzen 
den  besseren  Text,  audi  bei  den  Namen,  wahrend  A  sich  fast 
durchweg  Angleichung  an  den  MT  zu  Schulden  kommen  lasst." 
But  this  view  is  altogether  mistaken.  Codex  A,  in  these  books, 
has  not  been  conformed  to  MT;  and  as  for  the  misguided  worship 
of  codex  B,  it  has  nowhere  so  little  justification  as  here.  B  gen- 
erally yields  an  inferior  text  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  in  this 
case  it  is  at  its  very  worst. 

First,  as  to  codex  A.  It  makes  the  impression  of  being  sur- 
prisingly "correct,"  as  contrasted  ivith  B.  It  reads  smoothly,  as 
a  rule,  stands  generally  pretty  close  to  our  massoretic  Hebrew, 
and  (what  is  especially  noticeable)  does  not  give  in  its  proper 
names  the  monstrosities  which  are  the  rule  in  the  other  uncials, 
but  rather  presents  what  appears  to  be  a  mere  transliteration  of 
the  MT  forms.  But  this  does  not  show,  by  any  means,  that  A's 
is  a  corrected  text.  We  are  not  dealing  here  with  the  Penta- 
teuch, or  the  books  of  Samuel,  or  with  a  translation  made  in  the 
third  century  b.  c.  Theodotion  had  before  him  a  Hebrew  text 
which  very  closely  resembled  our  MT;  he  rendered  it 
exactly,  and    transliterated    very    carefully;    and    we  happen    to 

3^('ertaia  subdivisions  of  this  main  group  are  obvious  enough,  but  I  pass  them  over 
here  as  unimportant  for  my  purposes. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       93 

have  in  codex  A  a  {)rettY  old  and  nnusiially  trustworthy  c()|)y  of  the 
original  version.  That  is  all.  The  theory  that  A  has  been  exten- 
sively corrected  can  be  shown  on  every  page  and  in  every  chapter 
to  be  untenable.  The  codex  contains  a  great  many  ancient  errors 
of  which  the  correction  is  perfectly  obvious,  but  the  erroneous 
readings  have  in  almost  all  cases  been  allowed  to  stand.  Take, 
for  example,  the  numerous  transliterations  described  above  (j). 
69),  where  Theodotion  dealt  timidly  with  corrupted  words  which 
were  easily  emendable,  and  which  appear  in  their  correct 
form  in  MT,  Any  "edited"  text  would  correct  these  forms — 
as  they  are  corrected  in  L,  for  example.  But  in  A  they  remain 
unchanged.  A  good  illustration,  again,  from  I  Esdras  is  the 
ancient  corruption  of  the  name  "Megiddo,"  in  1:27,  where  the 
original  Greek  reading  MayeShcoi^v)  was  very  early  altered, 
through  accidents  of  a  familiar  type,  to  Me'yaeSSco^  and  MeraeS- 
Sovi.  Everyone  knew  what  the  correct  reading  was,  and  in  L 
(but  not  in  A)  it  was  of  course  substituted.  Moreover,  in  the 
part  of  I  Esdras  which  was  least  of  all  subject  to  correction  or 
alteration,  the  Story  of  the  Youths,  the  text  of  A  shows  the  same 
superiority  to  that  of  B  as  elsewhere.  A  typical  example  is  fur- 
nished by  the  proper  name  'ISovfialoi,  "Edomites,"  in  4:45,  50. 
In  both  places  A  gives  it  correctly,  while  B  has  in  the  first 
instance  'lovBaloi,  and  in  the  second  XaXSaloi.^'' 

In  Ezr.  8:10  it  is  obvious  that  cod.  A  and  a  small  group  of 
allied  MSS  have  preserved  an  ancient  reading  which  stood  in 
the  text  of  Theodotion,  but  is  wanting  in  MT,  L,  and  the  B 
group  alike.  MT  reads  T\'''2')bw  "'^T-  ;  the  B  and  L  groups  have  citto 
vlwv  '^aXeL/jiovd,  or  its  equivalent.  But  A  and  its  fellows  have  airo 
vloiv  Ba[ajw,  'leXeifjt.ovd,  which  is  certainly  correct.  The  name 
was  dropped  from  the  L  recension  and  from  the  MSS  of  the  B 
group  because  (on  comparison  with  MT)  the  ^avt  was  taken 
for  an  unnecessary  doublet  of  vicov. 

It  must  always  be  remembered  that  A  stands  in  no  sense 
alone.      Its  text  is  usually  that  of  the  great  majority  of  our  MSS. 

But  what  is  much  more  important  still  is  the  fact,  which  is 
quite  obvious  in  every  part  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh,  and  I  Esdras, 
that  the  cause  of  the  considerable  variation  in  the  Greek  texts  is 
not  correction,  but  corruption;  and  that  the  corrupt  forms  of 
proper  names,  which  are  especially  characteristic  of  the  B  group 

36 This  is  a  mere  correction  for  'lov&aloi;  cf.  cociox  ^>'>  and  the  Ethiopic  version. 


94:  Ezra  Studies 

of  MSS,  were  derived  directly  from  the  very  same  (and  far 
more  correct)  forms  which  appear  in  A  and  its  nearest 
associates.  In  other  words:  we  have  in  our  MSS  the  offspring 
of  only  one  Greek  version  of  the  three  canonical  books,  namely 
that  of  Theodotion;  at  a  short  distance  from  the  original,  but 
already  considerably  disfigured  by  accidents  of  transmission, 
stands  A;  farther  on  in  the  same  direction,  and  with  the  dis- 
figurement very  much  increased,  follow  the  MSS  of  the  B  group. 

The  great  inferiority  of  codex  B,  together  with  the  fact  that  it 
represents  in  general  a  mere  corruption  of  the  A  text,  may  be  illus- 
trated here  by  a  few  typical  examples ;  others  will  be  given  below. 

II  Chron.  34:22,  A  SaKovaO,  B  KadovaX.  A's  reading  agrees 
neither  with  MT  nor  with  II  Kings  22:14,  but  undoubtedly 
represents  Theodotion's  rendering  of  nnipH ,  as  also  appears  from 
a  comparison  of  the  qere  with  the  ketlb  in  our  MT. 

II  Chron.  36:8,  the  transliteration  yavo^a,  mentioned  above. 
A  and  most  MSS  have  yavo^av  (the  v  from  the  following  letter  /x,  in 
an  uncial  text),  B  yavo^arj,  with  the  familiar  corruption  of  N  to  H. 

I  Chron.  5:6,  26,  for  ncDbs  nb^n,  A  has  both  times  SajXad- 
(f)a\vaaap;  B,  in  vs.  6  ^aXya^avaaap,  and  in  vs.  26  @a'yva(f)afj,aaap. 
This  is  a  fair  sample  of  the  difference  between  A  and  B  through- 
out the  four  Chron. -Ezr.  books. 

I  Chron.  1:54  (and  Gen.  36:43)  for  the  name  DTy  A  has  H/ja/x, 
B  ZacfxoeLV !  The  scribal  blunders,  mostly  made  in  copying  a  cur- 
sive text,  are  only  those  which  the  B  scribes  are  constantly  making. 
The  original  transliteration  was  aipafi.  The  Z  came  from  the 
final  N  of  the  preceding  word;  tp  =  (fi,  as  very  often;  the  confusion 
of  a  with  ft)  can  be  found  on  almost  every  page  of  B ;  /x  becomes 
IV,  VI,  etc.  very  frequently. 

I  Chron.  2:47,  for  the  name  yji^j,  A  has  Tripawix,  B  Icoyap. 
Neither  agrees  with  MT,  and  the  B  reading  is  a  corruption 
from  that  of  A,  as  usual. 

I  Chron.  4:5,  for  n^~"i:S,  A  Aaxovp,  B  ^apa  (A  for  X,  see 
below  on  Neh.  3:2). 

I  Chron.  4:21,  the  traiislit.  e^SaO  a^^ov^,  given  correctly  in  A 
and  in  other  codices.  B  has  e(f)pad  a^aic.  This  does  not  mean 
at  all  that  B  has  been  corrected  according  to  a  reading  XTQ.y  ; 
on  the  contrary,  the  confusion  of  the  letters  h  and  p  is  a  rather 
common  thing  in  B  or  its  nearest  ancestors.  Another  example 
of  the  kind  is  Ezr.  8:27  Ka^ovBrjd  (the  transliteration,  according 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       95 

to  B),  where  A  and  most  of  the  others  have  Ka(f)ovpij  or  its  equiva- 
lent. In  both  of  these  cases,  and  in  others  of  the  same  nature, 
the  testimony  of  the  other  MSS  of  the  B  group  shows  that  we  have 
to  do  merely  with  corruption  in  the  Greek  text. 

Neh.  3:  2,  B  reads  Za^aovp  for  MT  1^3T.  This  certainly  seems 
at  first  sight  to  point  to  a  variant  Hebrew  reading,  but  it  does 
not  in  fact.  The  other  MSS  of  the  B  group  (X  ,  V)  show  that  the 
reading  of  their  archetype  was  ZuKxovp.  The  two  scribal  blun- 
ders, B  for  K  and  A  for  X,  have  each  many  examples  in  codex  B. 

II  Chron.  27:3;  33:14.  Theodotion's  transliteration  o</)aX  was 
corrupted  by  one  of  the  very  first  copyists  into  o(j>\a  (so  A  and 
the  best  of  the  others) ;  B  has  in  both  cases  onXa,  "arms." 

Such  examples  as  these  could  be  given  by  the  hundred.  And 
they  are  simply  typical  of  what  is  the  case  in  every  part  of  the 
four  books  now  under  discussion.^*  Attention  should  be  called, 
too,  to  the  large  number  of  omissions  in  codex  B,  due  simply 
to  incredible  carelessness.  A  good  example  is  the  very  first  verse 
of  Ezra,  in  which  three. words  absolutely  necessary  to  the  sense 
are  dropped  out.  Phrases  and  whole  sentences  are  lost  with  sur- 
prising frequency;  see,  for  example,  in  Ezr.-Neh.  alone,  Ezr.  1:3; 
2:10,  39;  3:3;  0:5;  8:5;  Neh.  3:4;  7:26  f.,  48. 

This  will  suffice  to  show  the  character  of  the  manuscript.  In 
Chron. -Ezr. -Neh.  and  I  Esdras,  the  best  uncial,  by  far,  is  A; 
and  the  worst,  by  far,  is  B.  It  would  be  hard  to  find,  among  the 
more  pretentious  MSS  of  the  Greek  Old  Testament,  any  other 
such  miserable  specimen  of  textual  tradition  as  that  which  codex 
B  offers  in  these  particular  books.  On  the  other  hand,  it  repre- 
sents a  text  which  has  suffered  comparatively  little  editorial 
correction.  Of  course,  all  of  our  MSS  have  been  more  or  less 
"improved"  by  the  rectification  of  obvious  errors  and  the  substi- 

30  If  there  is  any  kind  of  blunder,  or  confusion  of  Greek  letters,  wliich  the  transcriber  of 
B  (and  perhaps  also,  of  its  nearest  ancestor)  did  not  make  repeatedly,  I  do  not  know  what 
it  is.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  time  may  soon  come  when  the  authors  and  editors  of  works 
dealing  with  the  Old  Testament  will  cease  to  load  their  pages  with  the  textual  absurdities 
of  this  codex.  At  present,  the  custom  is  all  but  universal.  It  might  be  added,  in  general, 
that  the  recording  of  obvious  blunders  in  spoiling,  and  of  the  orthographic  habits  of  unknown 
scribes  (similar  habits  and  peculiarities  being  already  well  known)  is  not  a  matter  of  the 
least  scientific  interest.  The  editors  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  for  instance,  have  made 
their  work  the  repository  of  thousandsof  absolutely  worthless  "variants;"  as  tiiough  it  were 
useful  to  note  the  occurrence  of  both  Aiir  and  ASeiv,  or  as  though  there  could  be  any  text- 
critical  or  other  value  even  in  the  fact  that  while  one  codex  reads  BfKTiA«9  another  reads 
BoiKTeiAaiS  (the  pronunciation  being  exactly  the  same  in  the  two  cases);  to  say  nothing  of 
recording  su'-h  rnbbisli  as  B's  XBaoS,  from  EWaS  (all  ordinary  blunders,  oven  the  X;  cf.  the 
reading  of  S?  in  Neh.  7:40,  etc.)  in  I  Cliron.  11  ::iO,  or  its  BayaSirjA,  for  Befliaywi',  in  Josh.  15:41, 
or  TroAe><ui',  for  n6\euif,  in  I  Chron.  18:8,  or  hun<lrods  of  others  even  worse  than  these! 


96  Ezra  Studies 

tution  of  translations  for  the  more  disturbing  transliterations. 
Examples  of  such  correction  in  both  A  and  B  have  already  been 
given;  it  has  taken  place  less  often  in  B  than  in  A. 

2.  Hexaplar  MSS  of  Chrou.-Ezr.-Neh. 
As  has  already  been  said  (above,  p.  3),  Hexaplar  Greek  texts 
of  these  Old  Testament  books,  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  and  I  Esdras, 
have  heretofore  been  quite  unknown.  We  have  the  Syro- 
Hexaplar  version  of  I  Esdras,  however;  and  in  the  first  of  these 
essays  I  have  published  for  the  first  time  the  extant  fragments  of 
the  same  version  of  Nehemiah.^'  We  therefore  have  direct  access 
to  the  "Septuagint"  column  of  Origen's  Hexapla,  not  only  in 
I  Esdras  but  also  in  Nehemiah.  Through  the  general  neglect 
and  misunderstanding  of  I  Esdras  it  has  happened  that  no  one 
has  ascertained  what  Greek  MSS  are  most  nearly  related  to  the 
Syriac,  though  this  can  be  done  with  the  greatest  ease  and  cer- 
tainty, thanks  to  the  abundance  of  proper  names.  Nestle's  aston- 
ishing assertion  that  the  Syriac  I  Esdras  was  derived  "from  the 
Lucian  text"  (!)  has  already  been  noticed.  Comparison  shows, 
on  the  contrary,  that  the  Hexaplar  Syriac  of  both  I  Esdras  and 
Neh.  clings  closely  at  every  point  to  the  peculiar  text 
of  the  B  group,  which  has  just  been  described.  That  is,  ihe 
MSS  of  ihe  B  group  are  Hexaplar  MSS.  This  conclusion  is 
confirmed  by  the  much  misunderstood  note  appended  to  the 
book  of  Nehemiah  in  codex  &< ,  written  apparently  by  the 
original  hand.^*    The  note  states  that  the  codex  had  been  care- 

37 1  might  have  added  there,  in  giving  the  evidence  that  this  is  really  the  Syro-Hexaplar 
version,  that  its  transcriber  himself  explains  exactly  what  is  meant  by  the  recurring  phrase, 
"according  to  the  tradition  of  the  Seventy."  In  a  note  at  the  end  of  the  extracts  from  the 
book  of  Daniel  (MS  Brit.  Miis.  Add.  12,168,  fol.  1616)  he  says  that  the  version  from  which 
all  these  excerpts  are  made  is  that  of  Paul  of  Telia. 

38 Thus  Swete,  in  his  edition;  and  the  probability  seems  to  me  to  be  strongly  supported 
by  the  attendant  facts.  Of  course,  the  task  of  distinguishing  the  work  of  the  successive 
hands  in  co-lex  i5  is  one  of  notorious  difficulty  — often  quite  hopeless.  The  matter  is  further 
complicated  by  the  considerable  additions  to  the  text  which  have  been  made  by  the  "second" 
corrector  (X  <=■  "),  of  the  seventh  century,  whose  work  has  been  quite  generally  supposed  to 
be  that  which  is  referred  to  in  the  note;  see  Tischendorf 's  Vetus  Testamentum  Graece  (1887), 
Vol.  I,  Prolegomena,  p.  6:^;  Nestle,  EinfUhrung  in  das  griechische  NT.i,  p.  .51;  and  compare 
also  the  note  appended  (this  time  by  i<  c  a?)  to  the  book  of  Esther  in  codex  X-  B"t  the  addi- 
tions of  this  corrector  are  of  a  quite  different  type.  They  include:  (1)  the  plus  of  the  Hebrew 
(on  which  see  below) ;  also  (2)  corrections  from  the  A  text,  such  as  those  in  Neh.  2 :  16 ;  7 :  70, 
and  elsewhere;  (3)  extensive  insertions,  mostly  worthless  doublet  readings,  from  the  L 
recension,  such  as  those  in  Neh.  1:9,  11;  2:. 5,  6,  8,  etc. ;  and  (4)  corrections  from  still  other 
sources,  such  as  the  name  of  the  month  in  Neh.  1 : 1,  and  the  word  eui-oOxos  in  1 :  11.  It  would 
be  plain,  even  without  direct  proof,  that  this  variegated  material  was  not  derived  from 
Origen's  "LXX"  column ;  and  the  witness  of  the  Syro-Hex.  version  in  2 : 5-8  shows  conclusively 
that  it  was  not.  This  version  of  Paul  of  Telia,  it  is  to  bo  remembered,  included  everything 
—even  the  asterisked  matter  — which  stood  in  the  fifth  column  of  the  Hexapla.  The  note  at 
the  end  of  Noli,  in  5{  then,  if  it  tcslls  the  truth,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  work  of  the  cor- 
rector bi  c.  a. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezka-Nehemiah       1)7 

fully  collated  with  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  correct  of  all  existing 
Hexaplar  MSS.  But  there  is  in  the  MS  itself  no  evidence  of 
any  considerable  diorthosis  to  which  this  note  could  refer.  The 
corrections  in  the  original  hand  are  few  and  unimportant.  The 
necessary  conclusion  is,  that  at  least  in  the  book  of  Ezr.-Neh. 
codex  i<  is,  and  from  the  first  was  known  to  be,  a  Hexaplar  codex ; 
and  that  care  was  taken  to  make  it  as  faithful  a  replica  of  Origen's 
text  as  possible.^'' 

We  can  say  then  with  certainty  that  in  both  "■First  Esdras'^ 
and  "Secoud  Esdras'''  (Ezra-Nehemiah)  the  manuscripts  J5,*"  B, 
55  represent  more  or  less  faithful  transcripts  of  the  fifth  column 
of  the  Hexapla,  and  that  codex  N*'  is  Hexaplar  at  least  in  Ezr.- 
Neh.  It  is  important  to  notice,  further,  that  the  asterisked 
passages  (Origen's  insertions  from  the  phis  of  the  Hebrew)  are 
omitted.  This  fact  appears  plainly  from  a  comparison  of  the 
Greek  with  the  surviving  fragments  of  the  Syro-Hexaplar  Nehe- 
miah,  which  contain  the  phis.  The  B  MSS  coincide  exactly 
with  the  Syriac  except  in  this  one  particular." 

In  regard  to  the  B  group  in  Chronicles  it  is  necessary  to 
speak  with  more  caution ;  but  it  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  here 
also  these  same  MSS  contain  the  Hexaplar  text.  The  codices  X, 
B,  and  55,  at  all  events,  have  the  very  same  character  here,  and 
bear  the  same  relation  to  one  another  and  to  the  A  group,  as  in 
the  Ezra-Nehemiah  books.  I  have  not  satisfied  myself,  thus  far, 
that  the  same  is  true  of  codex  N;  for  this,  in  the  majority  of  the 

'^'i  One  must  of  course  bear  iu  mind  the  fact  of  the  remarkable  displacement  of  a  portion 
of  codex  55'  and  of  the  MS  from  wiiich  it  was  copied  (the  origin  of  the  circum- 
stance having  been,  probably,  the  accidental  transposition  of  a  single  quire),  in  these  very 
books;  and  also  the  possibility  that  the  above-mentioned  note  was  simply  transcribed  from 
an  older  codex.  Bui  no  one  of  all  these  uncertainties  can  affect  the  conclusion  that  X  is 
here  a  Hexaplar  MS.    That  fact  is  absolutely  certain. 

win  codex  J?,  which  is  incomplete,  I  Esdras  is  now  lacking,  to  be  sure.  The  fact  that 
in  certain  other  books  of  the  Old  Testament  codex  B  contains,  or  has  affinities  with,  a  Hexa- 
plar text  is  well  known  ;  see  Swete's  Introd.,  pp.  487  f. ;  Coruill,  Einleitung^,  p.  335. 

*i  According  to  Swete's  Introduction,  pp.  1.32,  202,  this  codex  does  not  contain 
/  Esdras.  What  the  ground  of  this  statement  is,  I  do  not  know,  and  nothing  in  the  literature 
to  which  I  have  access  has  yielded  any  explanation.  According  to  Holmes  and  Parsons, 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  last  chapter  of  tiio  book  is  missing  in  the  codex  (XI),  but  their 
apparatus  includes  readings  from  every  other  part. 

The  relation  of  the  text  of  N  to  that  of  the  Hexapla  is  not  a  simple  one.  In  Ezr.-Neh. 
it  is  plainly  based  on  Origen's ;  in  I  Esdras  and  Chron.,  on  the  other  hand,  it  difters  so  widely 
as  to  make  one  of  two  suppositions  necessary:  cither  it  represents  an  intermediate 
stage  between  the  older  and  more  correct  text  of  A  and  the  type  selected  by  Origen  ;  or  else, 
it  is  eclectic.  It  usually  contains  old  and  relatively  correct  readings,  but  is  plainly  related 
everywhere  to  the  Origen  text  in  a  way  that  is  not  true  of  cod.  A  and  its  nearest  relatives. 
I  have  not  made  any  thorough  examination,  and  so  cannot  speak  with  confidence. 

*'^In  codex  JJ,  the  "second"  corrector  (5{c.  a),  of  the  seventh  century,  has  introduced 
these  passages,  as  well  as  considerable  other  material  of  varied  character.  See  the  descrip- 
tion of  his  work  in  a  preceding  note. 


98  Ezra  Studies 

points  at  which  I  have  tested  it,  has  seemed  to  abandon  its  com- 
panions of  the  B  group  and  to  conform  to  the  text  of  A  and  its 
fellows ;  see  above.  The  investigation  is  rendered  more  difficult 
by  the  fact  that  J<  is  wanting  in  nearly  the  whole  of  Chronicles, 
while  the  help  of  the  Syriac  and  Ethiopic  versions  is  no  longer 
to  be  had,  and  the  text  of  B  is  so  corrupt  as  to  render  it  unfit  to 
be  a  basis  of  comparison. 

The  following  passages  will  serve  to  show  both  the  relatively 
poor  quality  of  the  Hexaplar  text  in  these  books  (Chronicles, 
Ezra,  Nehemiah,  I  Esdras)  and  also  the  relative  amount  of  cor- 
ruption in  the  several  MSS  which  compose  the  Hexaplar  group. 
It  is  often  possible  to  recognize  successive  stages  of  degeneration, 
and  in  such  cases  it  is  almost  invariably  codex  B  which  occupies 
the  last  stage. 

Ezr.  10:  23,  where  A  and  nearly  all  of  the  MSS  of  its  "group" 
have  the  correct  reading: 

A,  KfoXtra?  Kal  ^edeta  koI  louSa? 
!J^  ,  KeoXixau  k.  ^aaia  k.  leSo/u. 
N,  Kft)Xt€T  K.  (i>aBaia  k.  ^aho^x, 

B,  KwA-tev  K.  <^ahaia  k.  loSofx 

Neh.  1:1,  A,  Xaa-erjXov;  5<  and  N,  Ee^e/^X;   B,  Se%ei/Xoi;. 
I  Chron.  11:12,  A  (correctly),  Axw^t;  ^5,  A^com;  B,  Apx(ov€u 
I  Chron.  11:33  f.,  Theodotion's  original  transliteration  must 
have  been: 

EXlu^u  6  l^aaXa^wvi,  ^eve  Aa-a/x  6  Tovvl 

A,  EXia/Sa  6  '2aXal3(Ovi,  vioV^  Acra/x  6  Tcovvl 
a^,  EajxajBa  6  2(W/u.et,  Bevvea<i  6  '2o/xoyevvovvLV** 

B,  "Eafjua/Sa  6  O/xet,  Be^yata?  o  'LofioXoyevvovveiv 

The  variations  of  &^  and  B  from  the  original  text  are  due  here,  as 
in  the  other  cases,  merely  to  copyist's  blunders  in  the  Greek. 
I  Chron.  12:27,  A  and  N,  layaSae;  H^,  TcoaBae;  B,  TcoaSa?. 
I  Chron.  15:9,  A,  EXirjX;  S,  EvvX;  B,  Evi^p.'' 
Neh,  7:70,  72,  A,  x^^^^^^'^  ^  fiiic^  B,  in  both  places,  fxexf^vwO. 

*3Such  harmless  correctioa  of  Thedotion's  unnecessary  transliteration  occurs  spora- 
dically in  all  of  the  MSS.  Thus  in  I  Chron.  2:53  B  has  irdAen  laeip,  while  A  retains  Kapiaflioeip. 

••*  Presumably  ev  from  w,  as  occasionally  elsewhere. 

45  How  it  is  possible  for  a  scholar  who  has  both  commented  on  the  books  of  Chronicles 
and  edited  their  Hebrew  text  to  say  (as  quoted  above) :  "  B  hat  .  .  .  .  im  ganzon  den  besseren 
Text,  auch  boi  den  Namen,"  when  it  is  everywhere  as  clear  as  daylight  that  the  difference 
between  the  readings  of  A  and  B,  in  Swete's  apparatus,  is  a  difference  due  simply  to 
inner-Greek  corruption,  and  that  A  has.  or  approximates  to,  the  very  forms^ 
from  which  those  of  B  were  corrupted,  passes  my  comprehension. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chroxicles-Ezra-Nehemiah       99 

I  Esdr.  5:G(),  A,  Aa^aaapeO,  the  original  (corru[)t )  reading 
of  the  I  Esdr.  fragment;  B,  N,  Acr/SuKaxpad;  and  this  still  more 
corrupt  form  stood  in  the  Hexdphi,  as  is  shown  by  the  Syriac  and 
Ethiopic  versions. 

I  Esdr.  8:7,  A,  E^pa?;  B,  Ai/ra/oa? ( ! ) ;  so  also  the  8yr.-Hex.  and 
the  Eth.  (with  a  slight  variation).    Cf.  the  form  found  in  B  in  9:46. 

I  Esdr.  8:31.  For  ^aaOfima^  (or  IT'),  given  in  all  the  MSS 
which  are  not  Hexaplar,  B,  Syriac,  and  Ethiopic  have  MaadfjLwa^. 

I  Esdr.  8:33.  The  Hebrew  (Ezr.  8:7)  has:  rrTC^  Ub^y  ^Z^Z 
This  was  correctly  rendered  in  the  I  Esdras  text,  as  A  and  its 
associates  show:  e/c  toov  vloiv  EX.a/i.,  'lecro-ta?.  In  the  text  of  Ori- 
gen's  LXX  column,  the  first  letter  of  each  of  the  two  proper  names 
was  missing;  B  has  e'/c  roiv  vimv  Aa/x,  'Eo-ta?,  and  with  this  the 
Ethiopic  agrees,  though  combining  the  two  proper  names  into  one ; 
Syriac  has  j.msv?  pir;  ^,  i.  e.  the  same  text,  but  reading  MAA 
in  place  of  A  AM. 

These  examples,  which  are  truly  representative,  could  be  vastly 
multiplied.  And  they  all  tell  the  same  story.  It  is  an  interesting 
question,  but  one  which  we  hardly  have  the  means  of  answering, 
how  Origen  happened  to  choose  this  inferior  text  for  his  "Sep- 
tuagint."  Possibly  some  old  and  venerated  codex  led  him  astray ; 
or  it  may  be  that  he  made  the  same  mistake  which  modern  scholars 
have  made.  Not  knowing  that  Theodotion  was  the  author  of  this 
version — and  we  may  be  sure  (see  above,  p.  4)  that  he  did  not 
know  it  —  he  may  have  looked  with  suspicion  on  the  Greek  text 
that  agreed  closely  with  MT,  and  have  preferred  the  one  that 
showed  somewhat  more  divergence.  Even  the  latter  stood  nearer 
to  the  Hebrew  (leaving  proper  names  out  of  account)  than  was  the 
case  with  the  Greek  versions  of  most  of  the  Old  Testament  books. 

3.   The  Versions  Made  from  Origen' s  "■SeptuafiinV 

The  main  facts  regarding  the  Syriac  translation,  made  by  Paul 
of  Telia,  I  have  already  set  forth  (above,  pp.  Iff.).  It  is  most 
unfortunate  that  just  this  portion  of  the  Maes  codex,  which 
contained  Chronicles,  First  Esdras,  Ezra,  and  Nehemiah,  should 
have  perished  utterly,  leaving  no  trace  behind.  In  other  manu- 
scripts I  Esdras  has  been  preserved  entire;  and  a  single  MS  — 
published  by  me  above,  pp.  7-10 — gives  us  a  few  extracts  from 
Nehemiah. 

We  know  that  this  version  was  made  from  the  fifth  column  of 


100  Ezra  Studies 

the  Hexapla,  and  that  it  was  very  exact.  In  the  attempt  to  deter- 
mine its  relation  to  the  existing  Hexaplar  MSS  of  the  Chron.-Ezra 
books  we  are  at  a  great  disadvantage,  because  of  the  scantiness  of 
the  material.  Codex  IS<  lacks  I  Esdras;  and  N,  as  has  already 
been  observed,  either  occupies  an  intermediate  position  or  else 
yields  an  eclectic  text,  and  cannot  be  trusted  as  a  witness  to 
Origen's  readings.  Throughout  I  Esdras  the  Syriac  stands 
pretty  close  to  codex  B,  but  represents  in  general  a  text  some- 
what less  disfigured  by  the  blunders  of  scribes.  The  same  is  true 
in  the  Nehemiah  extracts.  Here,  where  we  are  at  last  able  to 
compare  i< ,  the  portion  of  the  text  is  too  small  in  extent  to  give 
a  satisfactory  basis  of  comparison.  The  Syriac  agrees  very  notice- 
ably with  B  in  reproducing  the  clerical  blunder  XeX/ceta  (|.nN..) 
in  1:1,  and  in  retaining  iKTeTivay/xevoyv  (j^aTio)  instead  of  eKreray- 
fievcov,  in  4:16(10) ;  in  the  former  case  against  all  other  witnesses, 
and  in  the  latter  against  all  but  the  faithful  codex  55.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Syriac  agrees  with  J<  against  B  in  the  passages 
8:2,  Kul  eft)?;  8:9,  ol  avveri^ovre'i;  ibid.,  7]Kovcr€v;  8:10,  fxepiSa^.  I 
have  not  made  any  careful  comparison,  however. 

The  Greek  of  Origen's  fifth  column  contained  his  selected  text 
expanded  by  the  insertion  of  translations  of  the  plus  of  MT,  these 
additions  being  marked  in  each  case  by  an  asterisk  and  a  meto- 
belus.  The  early  Greek  transcripts  of  this  column,  made  by  those 
who  wished  the  "true  Septuagint  text,"  omitted  the  asterisked 
portions,  as  we  have  seen.  Paul  of  Telia  translated  the  whole 
column,  retaining  the  signs.***  Subsequent  copyists  of  his  ver- 
sion generally  retained  the  whole  text,  but  omitted  the  signs.  This 
is  true  of  the  Nehemiah  extracts  in  our  single  surviving  manu- 
script ;  the  j^lus  of  the  Hebrew  is  there,  but  not  distinguished  in 
any  way.     See  for  illustration  2:1,  8;  8:18. 

Of  an  Ethiopic  version  of  Origen's  "LXX,"  only  I  Esdras 
has  thus  far  been  published.  It  has  not  heretofore  been  recog- 
nized as  Hexaplar  in  its  origin.  Whether  a  similar  version  of 
any  other  of  the  Chron.-Ezra  books  was  made,  is  not  known.  The 
text  was  edited,  from  five  manuscripts,  by  Dillmann  in  his  Vet. 
Test.  Aethopici  Tom.  V,  Libri  Apocryphi,  Berlin,  1894.  He 
himself  remarks  concerning  this  version  (p.  219)  that  it  was  made 
at  an  early  date,  from  a  Greek  text  which  it  renders  very  faithfully, 
and  that  it  has  been  well  preserved. 

<6  The  text  of  I  Esdras  of  course  did  not  contain  any  of  these  asterisked  passages. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah     101 

Examination  of  this  version  shows  that  it  is  a  valuable  witness 
to  the  Hexaplar  text.  It  must  have  been  made  with  unusual  care, 
from  a  comparatively  trustworthy  codex.  The  Greek  which  can 
be  restored  from  it  coincides  throughout  with  that  obtained  from 
the  Syr.-Hex.,  B,  55,  and  (frequently)  N,  in  sharp  distinction 
from  the  other  and  more  common  type  of  text  represented  by  A 
and  the  army  of  cursives.  Some  striking  examples  of  this  coin- 
cidence have  already  been  given,  and  a  great  many  more  could  be 
added  if  it  were  necessary.  Ethiopic  versions  of  Old  Testament 
books  are  usually  of  very  little  consequence,  and  it  is  therefore 
most  refreshing  to  find  one  that  is  really  useful. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  what  indisputable  evidence  is  furnished 
of  the  corrupt  state  of  the  manuscript  which  Origen  selected. 
Thus,  in  5:18,  where  the  old  "Egyptian"  reading  was  BaLOaa/xtoO, 
the  stupid  doublet  Vtaidaafiwv  ^afifxcod  is  faithfully  reproduced  by 
the  Ethiopic  and  B  (Syriac  is  wanting  here);  and  in  8:29,  where 
the  ordinary  text  had  <i>Lvea<i,  Tepacov  •  utto,  the  monstrous  reading 
^0/309.  Tapoa-OToixo<i  (think  of  pinning  our  faith  to  such  tran- 
scribers as  these!)  is  attested  by  B,  Syriac,  and  Ethiopic  alike. 
Another  good  illustration  is  found  in  9:25.  Here,  instead  of  dvpcD- 
poiv,  "doorkeepers,"  Origen's  text  had  dvyaTepcov,  "daughters"( !), 
and  this  nonsense  is  transmitted,  as  usual,  by  B,  Ethiopic,  and 
Paul  of  Telia.  That  we  are  ultimately  dealing  in  these  cases 
merely  with  a  single  very  corrupt  manuscript  is  proved  conclu- 
sively— as  also  in  a  hundred  similar  cases — by  the  fact  that  both 
the  Syrian  text  (preserved  in  L)  and  the  ordinary  Egyptian  text 
(given  by  the  great  majority  of  the  MSS)  testify  only  to  the 
correct  reading. 

The  Ethiopic  will  generally  be  found,  then,  to  agree  with  codex 
B.  In  many  passages  it  differs,  however,  its  distance  from  B  being, 
on  the  whole,  about  the  same  as  that  of  the  Syriac,  with  which, 
in  turn,  it  frequently  fails  to  coincide. 

■4.   The  Tico  Main  Branches  of  the  Greek  Trodition 

In  the  case  of  the  Chron.-Ezr.  books,  the  fact  of  a  double  tradi- 
tion of  the  Greek  text  can  be  especially  well  observed.  The  one 
branch  may  be  called  the  Syrian,  inasmuch  as  it  forms  the  basis 
of  the  Lucianic  recension;  the  other  I  have  termed  Egyptian, 
and  this  designation,  though  probably  not  exact,  is  at  least  con- 
venient. 


102  Ezra  Studies 

In  the  I  Esdras  fragment,  and  especially  in  the  Story  of  the 
Youths,  where  there  is  no  complication  from  successive  transla- 
tions, conformation  to  a  Semitic  text,  and  the  like,  the  phenomenon 
of  the  two  slightly  differing  types  of  text  is  seen  in  its  simplest 
form.  A  typical  case  is  that  of  the  proper  name  in  4:29,  which 
I  have  elsewhere  discussed  (above,  p.  43).  Here,  the  form 
'Ba^uKov  is  attested  by  a  formidable  array  of  witnesses,  including 
Josephus ;  while  the  more  familiar  form,  BapTaicov,  goes  back  to  a 
period  considerably  earlier  than  Origen,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  it  is  attested  by  all  our  Greek  MSS,  excepting  the  few  which 
constitute  the  L  group.  Throughout  the  whole  of  I  Esdras,  some- 
thing similar  to  this  can  be  observed.  There  are  plainly  two  distinct 
traditions  of  the  Greek  text,  differing  from  each  other  slightly,  on 
the  whole,  including  both  the  spelling  of  the  proper  names  and 
the  wording  of  the  narrative.  The  variation  is  not  at  all  such  as 
to  suggest  two  translations,  but  consists  rather  in  those  occa- 
sional differences  which  inevitably  arise  in  the  course  of  time, 
through  the  ordinary  accidents  of  transmission,  when  documents 
are  handed  down  through  separate  lines  or  families  of  manuscripts. 
The  one  "family"  includes  the  text  adopted  by  Origen,  and  also 
nearly  all  of  the  extant  MSS;  and  we  may  therefore  regard 
Alexandria  as  its  proper  home,  even  though  it  was  in  current  use 
far  beyond  the  borders  of  Egypt.  Of  the  text  belonging  to  the 
other  line  of  transmission  we  know  that  it  formed  the  basis  of  the 
one  which  came  to  be  regarded  as  authoritative  in  Syria,  at  least  in 
and  after  the  fourth  century  A.  d.  (Swete,  Introduction,  pp.  80- 
86).  It  is  thus  presumably  the  text  which  had  been  handed 
down  in  Syria  and  Palestine  from  an  early  date.  Its  influence 
also  extended  far  to  the  north  and  west.  The  MSS  containing  it 
are  few  (those  of  the  L  recension),  but  it  is  also  embodied  in  the 
old  Latin  version  of  I  Esdras.  This  same  type  of  text — plainly 
belonging  to  the  same  tradition  as  that  of  I  Esdras — is  found  in 
other  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  is  well  known.  A.  Mez,  in  a 
pamphlet*'  published  in  1895,  showed  that  the  Greek  text  followed 
by  Josephus  in  his  Antiquities,  for  the  part  of  the  Old  Testament 
which  includes  Joshua,  Judges,  and  the  two  books  of  Samuel,  was 
usually  the  same  which  underlies  the  L  recension.  I  had  already, 
in  my  own  investigation  of  the  text  of  I  Esdras,  conducted  in  that 

<7  Die  Bihel  des  Josephus  untersucht  filr  BUcher,  v.-vii.  der  Archdol.,  Basel.  See  also 
Swete's  Introduction,  p.  379. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah     103 

same  year,  made  a  similar  comparison  for  this  book,  and  reached 
a  result  somewhat  resembling  that  of  Mez.  In  this  case,  how- 
ever, Josephus'  text  does  not  correspond  to  the  nucleus  of  L ;  nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  does  it  agree  throughout  with  any  form  of  the 
"Egyptian"  tradition;  it  seems  rather  to  occupy  an  intermediate 
position,  giving  now  the  reading  of  the  one,  now  of  the  other. 
The  cases  in  which  Josephus  coincides  with  L,  against  the  ordi- 
nary I  Esdras  text,  while  not  many  in  number,  are  worthy  of 
notice.  Examples  are:  I  Esdr.  1:9,  cf.  Jos.  x,  71,  the  numbers 
of  the  sheep  and  bullocks.  I  Esdr.  4:29,  cf.  Jos.  xi,  54,  the 
name  of  the  father  of  Apama,  already  mentioned  as  an  example. 
Ezra.  4:10  (the  passage  now  missing  in  our  I  Esdr.  2:16  [13]), 
cf.  Jos.  xi,  19,  the  name  of  the  king,  Salmanassar,  Inasmuch  as 
all  the  Greek  texts  of  I  Esdras  came  from  a  single  MS,  the 
beginning  of  the  two  diverging  lines  of  tradition,  Egyptian  and 
Syrian,  lies  not  very  far  back,  presumably  a  good  while  after  the 
time  of  Josephus.  It  follows  that  the  coincidence  of  his  text  with 
either  one  of  the  two  (in  cases  where  we  cannot  suspect  correction 
or  contamination)  gives  us  the  original  reading  of  the  I  Esdras 
fragment. 

From  what  has  been  said  thus  far,  it  might  be  supposed  that 
the  L  text  embodies  merely  the  Syro-Palestinian  tradition  of  the 
I  Esdras  Greek  in  the  same  way  that  the  MSS  of  the  A  and  B 
groups  embody  the  Egyptian  tradition.  This  is  by  no  means  true, 
as  will  be  shown  below.  The  L  text  is  everywhere  contaminated, 
conflated,  and  arbitrarily  altered,  even  in  the  Story  of  the  Three 
Youths;  and  this  unfortunate  redaction  —  the  only  form  in  which 
we  know  the  text — was  undertaken  at  a  late  date. 

In  the  canonical  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.,  again,  we  can  observe  the 
same  phenomenon  of  a  Syrian  text  differing  slightly  (in  its  primi- 
tive form)  but  unmistakably  from  the  Egyptian  text.  The  differ- 
entiation did  not  begin  in  this  case  until  after  the  middle  of  the 
second  century  a.  d.,  since  it  is  in  Theodotion's  version  that  it 
takes  place.  We  should  therefore  expect  tbe  variation  to  be  rela- 
tively small,  and  this  it  is  in  fact;  but  the  distinction  between 
"Syrian"  text  and  "Egyptian"  text  is  a  real  and  important  one, 
nevertheless.  No  better  illustration  is  needed  than  that  which 
has  already  been  given,  above,  in  recording  occasional  instances  in 
which  the  Syrian  tradition  preserves  Theodotion's  characteristic 
transliteration — directly    against    the   whole    tendency    of 


104  Ezra  Studies 

the  L  recension  —  while  the  Egyptian  emends  by  translating. 
It  often  happens,  of  course,  that  the  L  MSS  contain  a  synonym 
of  the  word  which  is  found  in  all  the  other  codices.  This  is  in 
many  cases  not  the  mere  result  of  a  somewhat  free  transmission, 
however,  but  rather  of  a  deliberate  revision;  see  below.  There 
are  not  a  few  instances,  finally,  of  addition,  subtraction,  or  altera- 
tion in  the  Egyptian  text,  where  L  has  preserved  the  original 
form.  A  good  example  is  furnished  by  I  Chron.  26:16-18,  where 
in  the  whole  array  of  MSS  of  the  A  and  B  groups  vs.  18  contains 
a  secondary  rendering**  which  was  evidently  unknown  in  Syria,  as 
it  is  wanting  in  L.  Such  revision  as  this  is  rare  in  the  Egyptian 
text,  however,  while  in  L  it  is  the  rule.  An  example  of  a  later 
Egyptian  alteration,  whose  influence  has  not  proceeded  quite  so 
far,'  is  II  Chron.  33:14,  where  MT  reads:  U^jlH  '^TJ^Zi  J^inbl 
b32?b  unci.  Theodotion  rendered  this:  [Mera  ravra  wKoSo/jii]- 
aev  .  .  .  .  ]  Kul  iKTTopevofievcov  rrjv  ttvXtjv  jrjv  l')(6vi,Krjv  KVKXodev 
(reading  JPZl^  )  ek  to  ocfiaX.  In  this  text,  through  the  blunders  of 
a  copyist  or  two  and  the  influence  of  the  Greek  in  27:3,  the  word 
IxdviKTjv  was  lost  and  et?  to  o(f>aX  became  ek  avTo  o(f>\a  (B,  al. 
oirXa).  A  revising  hand  added,  presumably  in  the  margin  of  a 
MS,  a  new  rendering  of  the  passage:  Kara  rrjv  elaohov  rrjv  Blo,  t?)? 
7rvXr}<i  rr)?  l)(^6vLKri<;  koI  TrepteKVKXwaev  (=MT)  to  aBvTov.*''  This 
then  found  its  way  as  a  doublet  reading  into  the  text  of  an 
important  group  of  codices,  including  A,  and  into  the  margin  of 
B.  A  single  one  of  these  changes,  that  of  0<I>AA  into  O^AA, 
antedates  the  branching-off  of  the  Syrian  tradition;  in  other 
respects  L  has  here  kept  the  original  reading. 

In  general,  the  best  MSS  of  the  Egyptian  family  present  a 
homogeneous  text  which  has  been  very  little  revised.  By  compar- 
ing them  among  themselves,  with  the  help  of  the  massoretic 
Hebrew,  we  can  usually  find  our  way  back  to  the  very  words  of 
Theodotion.  The  aid  of  L  can  never  be  dispensed  with,  however? 
and  in  a  good  many  cases  it  is  our  sole  Greek  witness  to  the  true 
reading.  It  is  sometimes  the  case,  to  be  sure,  that  even  with  the 
testimony  of  both  recensions  before  us  we  are  at  a  loss  to  find  the 

♦*<  Based  on  a  slightly  different  Hebrew  text?  The  rpec?  suggests  rnCblS  +  nDblS  ;  the 
word  nbO^li]  is  apparently  in  another  place;  TO'WTl  is  not  translated  in  either  version. 
This  added  rendering  makes  it  still  more  certain,  by  the  way,  that  in  the  first  clause  of  vs. 
n  the  original  reading  was  Qllb  >  and  not  C^lbn  (the  H  came  from  the  last  letter  of  the 
preceding  word).  Our  modern  translators,  editors,  and  commentators  appear  not  to  have 
noticed  this. 

"On  the  possibility  that  this  was  the  translation  of  Symmachus,  see  below. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah     105 

original.  With  L  alone,  on  the  other  hand,  we  should  be  very 
badly  off.  Unless  it  is  constantly  controlled  by  the  Egyptian 
text  it  is  very  diflBcult  to  put  it  to  any  critical  use.  Along  both  of 
these  main  lines  of  tradition  there  has  been  a  good  deal  of 
accidental  corruption  of  the  text,  the  greater  part  of  which  is 
easy  to  trace.  The  only  type  of  text  in  which  this  corruption  has 
gone  very  far  is,  as  has  been  shown,  Origen's  own  '"Septuagint." 
The  relation  of  the  A  group  to  the  B  group  is  in  all  other  respects 
a  close  one;  see,  for  an  illustration,  Neh,  12:376-38,  where  a 
long  passage  is  wanting  in  ABj^ ,  though  present  in  many  cursives 
as  well  as  in  the  L  text.  It  formed  a  part  of  the  Theodotion  version, 
as  the  6avvovpei/x  shows  (cf.  3:11).  That  is,  the  codex  which 
was  the  ancestor  of  both  A  and  the  MS  which  Origen  took  as  the 
basis  of  his  text  had  accidentally  lost  this  passage.  Among  the 
cursives  of  the  Egyptian  family  which  deserve  close  attention, 
cod,  56  and  (especially)  the  Aldine  MS  121'"  are  conspicuous  for 
the  extent  to  which  they  have  preserved  the  original  readings  of 
the  Theodotion  version. 

5.   The  Syridii  Tradition,  the  Lucian  Recension,  and  our  L  Text 

How  wide  an  influence  the  Syro-Palestinian  text  exerted 
■during  its  early  history,  while  it  represented  merely  a  divergent 
form  of  the  Greek  tradition,  we  do  not  know.  We  do  not  even 
know  whether  it  was  ever  a  relatively  correct  text."'  We  know 
simply  that  it  preserved  a  good  many  old  readings  which  were  lost 
or  changed  in  the  more  widely  current  version.  It  presumably 
deteriorated  gradually,  like  its  fellows,  until  the  time  when  it  was 
made  the  basis  of  that  thoroughgoing  recension  which  has  survived 
to  the  present  day. 

Near  the  end  of  the  third  century  a.  d.,  Lucian  of  Antioch 
undertook  a  revision  of  the  Greek  Old  Testament.  The  few  facts 
which  are  known  in  regard  to  this  Syrian  editor  have  often  been 
rehearsed;  and  the  reasons  why  our  L  text  is  commonly  supjjosed 
(and  doubtless  rightly)  to  be  identical  with  Lucian's  recension 
are  also  familiar.^'^  Even  the  bare  comparison  of  the  citations  from 
Theodoret,  given  in  Holmes  and  Parsons,  would  lead  one  to  the 

50 This  codex  sometimes  sLows  a  close  afliuity  with  the  L  MSS,  it  is  to  be  observed. 

51  Tlio  old  Latiu  translation  of  I  Esdras  gives  us  some  information  on  this  point,  to  be 
sure;  see  below. 

52  See  Swete,  Introduction,  pp.  80-86. 


106  Ezra  Studies 

conclusion  that  L  is  an  Antiochian  text;  while  the  fact  that  it  rep- 
resents not  a  growth  but  an  arbitrary  revision  is  patent  enough. 
Occasionally  in  descriptions,  and  commonly  in  actual  use,  our 
L  text  is  treated  as  though  it  were  identical,  or  nearly  identical, 
with  the  text  of  the  Syro-Palestinian  tradition.  Thus  Swete 
{Introduction,  p.  379),  in  dealing  with  the  Old  Testament  text 
used  by  Josephus,  speaks  of  a  probability  that  in  certain  of  the 
historical  books  "the  Greek  Bible  of  Palestine  during  the  second 
half  of  the  first  century  presented  a  text  not  very  remote  from  that 
of  the  recension  which  emanated  from  Antioch  early  in  the 
fourth,"  But  this  is  by  no  means  the  true  state  of  the  case.  The 
version  as  reconstructed  by  Lucian  bears  about  the  same  relation 
to  the  one  on  which  it  was  based  as  a  thoroughly  remodeled, 
renewed,  and  enlarged  house  bears  to  its  smaller  original.  In 
every  part  of  the  structure,  a  great  many  of  the  old  beams,  boards, 
stones,  and  other  materials  have  been  replaced  by  new  ones,  new 
fabric  has  everywhere  been  superadded  to  the  old,  and  the  fashion 
of  the  whole  has  been  changed.  The  following  classes  of  altera- 
tions characterize  the  Lucian  recension: 

1,  The  text  has  been  extensively  conformed  to  the  massoretic 
Hebrew,  (a)  The p^?ts  of  MT  is  freely  inserted;  not  consistently 
— nothing  is  done  consistently  in  the  L  recension — ^but  as  a  rule,- 
Thus  I  Chron.  26:16,  17;  Ezr.  9:13;  10:3;  Neh.  2:1,  8;  8:9; 
11:23;  these  being  merely  single  examples  of  what  takes  place  in 
every  chapter,  (6)  The  Greek  text  is  very  frequently  corrected 
according  to  the  Hebrew.  The  original  reading  of  the  Greek  is 
changed  from  singular  to  plural,  or  vice  versa,  in  order  to  conform 
to  MT.  Words  which  appear  to  be  out  of  agreement  with  the 
Hebrew  are  often  dropped,  and  their  places  are  taken  by  transla- 
tions of  MT.     So,  for  instance,  in  Ezr.  9:3,  5. 

2.  The  Greek  has  been  very  much  contaminated  from  other 
Greek  texts.  These  include:  («)  The  parallel  or  duplicate 
accounts.  Thus,  a  great  many  of  the  original  readings  of  the  L 
I  Esdras  have  been  discarded,  their  places  being  filled  by  the 
readings  of  the  canonical  version.  In  like  manner,  the  readings 
of  the  parallel  passages  in  the  other  historical  books  are  adopted 
whenever  they  happen  to  be  preferred.  That  is,  for  example,  the 
reader  of  the  L  version  of  Chronicles  must  everywhere  be  prepared 
to  find  that  the  word  or  phrase  with  which  he  is  dealing  has  simply 
been    transplanted   thither   from   Genesis,   or   Samuel,  or  Kings. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chroxicles-Ezra-Nehemiah     107 

{b)  Readings  found  in  any  part  of  the  Old  Testament  may  be  sub- 
stituted for  those  of  Theodotion  in  the  interest  of  the  harnionistic 
tendency.  (c)  Harmonizing  alterations  on  the  basis  of  the 
immediate  context,  usually  very  mischievous,  are  frequently  made. 
Thus  in  I  Esdr.  5:5  instead  of  o  tov  Zopo/Sa/SeX  L  offers  6  kuI 
Zopo/SoySeX. 

3.  One  constant  feature  of  the  L  recension  is  its  conflation 
from  various  sources.  iSide  by  side  with  Theodotion's  rendering, 
in  these  books,  we  very  often  have  that  of  some  other  translator, 
or  an  extract  from  a  parallel  passage.  Some  of  these  secondary 
renderings  are  derived  from  the  other  Hexaplar  versions;  some 
are  doubtless  the  work  of  Lucian  himself;  still  others  are  of 
unknown  origin.  For  characteristic  examples  see  I  Chron.  22:3; 
Ezr.  9:13;  Neh.  4:10  (2),  27  (17);  6:10.  Often  a  correction 
stands  beside  the  word  it  was  intended  to  correct,  as  in  I  Chron. 
4:22.  Occasionally  a  long  passage  is  repeated  in  varying  form, 
as  in  I  Esdr.  l:9/>-13,  where  the  I  Esdras  and  Chronicles 
accounts  are  put  side  by  side.  Not  infrequently  the  translation 
of  our  MT  is  accompanied  by  the  rendering  of  a  manifest  corrup- 
tion of  it,  as  in  Neh.  2:6,  8. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  search  for  traces  of  the  work  of 
Aquila  and  Symmachus  among  these  double  renderings,  whether 
they  are  found  in  L  or  in  other  recensions  or  manuscripts  of  these 
books.  Sometimes,  though  probably  not  often,  the  identification 
would  be  possible.  In  Neh.  5^13  (L),  OvTco<i  eKTivd^ai  6  Oeo'i 
avv  irdvra  dvhpa  o?  ov  crT^aei  crvv  tov  Xoyov  tovtov  k.t.X.,  where 
the  crvv  •  •  ■  ■  crvv,  representing  flj^  •  •  •  •  pjj^  ^  jg  j^^i  [j^  ^\^q 
ordinary  Greek,  it  seems  certain  that  we  have  an  extract  from  the 
translation  of  Aquila.  In  13:25  (L)  the  verb  ifiaSdpcoa-a  (other- 
wise unknown)  looks  like  an  imitation  of  the  Hebrew  t3"iTIJ5 
(not  rendered  here  by  Theodotion)  on  the  basis  of  the  verl) 
/xaSi^eiv,  "make  bald."  If  this  is  really  its  origin,  it  is  [)resum- 
ably  a  coinage  of  Aquila,  whose  fondness  for  such  new  creations 
is  well  known.''' 

The  hand  of  Symmachus  is  pretty  certainly  to  be  seen  in 
the  double  rendering  of  HrTJ  in  the  Hexaplar  text  (55,  B, 
but  not  the  Syr. -Hex.)    of  Neh.  1:3,  ev  tji  xf^pa  iv  ttj  iroXeL. 

530n  the  basis  of  this  verb-form  in  Neh.  13:2.5,  Klostermann  {Realencycl.,  loc.  cit.) 
would  emend  the  impossible  ^' iiraWo/iriv "  in  Ezr. 9:3,  5  to  iiiaSapu)iJ.rii>l  On  the  contrary,  the 
'Hebrew  word  which  corresponds  there  is  'O'^^^'Q  >  '"  my  outer  garment,"  and  we  must  read 
in  both  verses  to  TroAAtdi'  nov. 


108  Ezra  Studies 

We  know  that  Symmaclius  would  have  been  likely  to  substitute 
7ro'\t9  for  the  older  rendering  %«/9a,  for  he  makes  this  very  same 
correction  in  I  Kings  20:14  and  Dan.  8:2.  The  secondary  trans- 
lation in  II  Chron.  33:14  (the  passage  already  discussed  above), 
where  bsyiTI  is  rendered  by  to  uSvtov — the  doublet  this  time  also 
occurring  not  in  L  but  in  certain  Egyptian  MSS — suggests 
Symmachus,  though  I  do  not  know  that  it  is  possible  to  say  more 
than  this.  In  I  Sam.  5:9  Symmachus  renders  Wbti^  by  Kpuirrd, 
and  he  is  the  only  one  of  the  translators  to  interpret  the  root  bs^ 
in  this  way.  In  Neh.  3:15,  where  MT  has  nb'j; ,  and  the  ordi- 
nary Egyptian  text  reads  tmv  kwSicov,''*  codex  U5  has,  instead,  Oe 
Tov  ^iKwa^i.  This  certainly  appears  to  be  an  ascription  to  Theo- 
dotion,  as  Klostermann  has  observed.  Whether  it  is  a  correct 
ascription  or  not  is  another  question,  but  the  possibility  can 
hardly  be  denied.  In  that  case  we  should  have  to  suppose  that 
a  rendering  corresponding  to  our  MT  has  supplanted  the  original 
one  here. 

4.  Alterations  merely  in  the  interest  of  literary  quality  and 
completeness,  or  to  suit  the  editor's  dogmatic  or  other  preferences, 
are  everywhere  abundant.  These  include:  («)  The  removal 
(usual,  but  not  invariable)  of  Theodotion's  transliterations,  which 
are  accordingly  replaced  by  translations.  For  examples,  see  the 
list  above,  {h)  The  free  revision  of  difficult  phrases,  often  to 
the  extent  of  changing  their  meaning  and  completely  obscuring 
their  relation  to  the  original  Semitic,  A  characteristic  example 
is  I  Esdr.  4:39,  where  instead  of  the  exactly  rendered,  but  dis- 
turbing, Aramaic  idiom,  ra  hUaia  iroiel  airo  ttuvtcov  tmv  uSikcov, 
"she  executes  judgment  on  all  the  wicked,"  the  L  text  has  hUaia 
TTOiel,  Kal  airo  irdvnav  tmv  dBiKwv  aTrex^rai.  So  in  5:6  L  alters 
TOV  irpdorov  fxrjv6<;  (for  tt;  Trpcorr]  tov  //.7;yo?)  into  tm  irpcoTO)  fii]vi. 
Or  in  2:17  (14)  where  the  ordinary  text  has  vaov  vTro/BdXXovTat, 
—  in  MT  lt:"rp  ^^■"12:!!< — L  has  "improved"  the  reading  to  vaov 
virep^aXkovTa  defieXiovaiv.  Or  in  II  Chron.  2:12  (13),  rov  iralhd 
fiov  substituted  for  tov  iraTepa  fiov.  (c)  Supplementary  and 
interpretative  additions,  composed  freely  ad  hoc.  These  are  also 
very  numerous,  and  every  one  of  them  is  a  trap  for  the  unwary 
text-critic  who  wishes  to  advance  science  by  giving  new  Hebrew 


■''•This  word  is  a  veritable  translation  of  nblU  (cf.  the  Aramaic  S^nbtj  i   "hide"), 
is  by  no  means  to  bo  altered  into  ^oKL&mv,  as  Klostermann  proposes  on  the  basis  of  the  i 


.  and 

„^  ,„^^.^v.  ....,„  , ,  „^  „.„^ ."-r- ■  renSr 

deriiiKin4:17(n). 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah     109 

readings  from  "Lucian."  For  example,  in  II  Chron.  18:11)  the 
narrative  runs  as  follows:  'Yaliw6  said  to  his  heavenly  retainers, 
Who  will  mislead  Ahab?  One  proposed  one  thing,  and  another 
another.'  At  this  point  L  adds:  kuI  elirev,  Outw?  ov  buvi^aei •,'-'^ 
"But  Yahw6  said,  You  will  not  succeed  in  this  way."  Compare 
vs.  21.  In  Neh.  4:86  (vs.  18  in  the  L  Greek)  just  after  the  word 
Drr'jS  - ,  L  has  Kul  (opKia-a  avTov<i  Kvpiov  Xeycov,  a  purely  arbitrary 
insertion  in  the  Greek.  There  are  many  such  examples,  besides 
a  good  many  cases  in  which  the  addition  of  a  word  or  two  has 
been  made  with  interpretative  intent.  Thus,  the  words  "to  Jeru- 
salem," Neh.  8:1;  "of  Benjamin,"  11:8;  the  name  "Ezra"  in 
8:18;  see  also  I  Esdr.  4:13,  48,  61;  5:5;  Neh.  12:1,  etc.  Such 
interjected  vocatives  as  "O  king!"  I  Esdr.  4:43;  "O  Lord!" 
4:60,  are  of  course  to  be  expected.  And  finally,  a  characteristic 
example  is  afforded  by  the  close  of  I  Esdras.  In  the  original 
fragment,  the  end  was  reached  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence; 
but  in  the  L  text  this  inelegant  conclusion  is  improved  by 
the  addition  of  a  verse  (Neh.  8:18)  from  the  canonical  version. 
{(1)  The  substitution  of  synonyms.  This  well-known  and  com- 
paratively harmless  peculiarity  of  the  L  recension  needs  no 
illustration. 

50  much  for  the  deliberate  alterations  undertaken  by  the 
Lucianic  revision.  As  for  the  accidental  corruption  which  the 
Syro-Palestinian  Greek  text  had  already  undergone  in  the  process 
of  its  transmission,  before  suffering  this  very  extensive  editorial 
transformation,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  it  does  not  appear  to 
have  been  different,  in  kind  or  degree,  from  that  which  befell  the 
standard  Egyptian  text.  In  general,  the  amount  of  this  accidental 
corruption  is  much  underestimated  by  those  who  have  made  use  of 
Lagarde's  edition.'"  Klostermann  [loc.  cit.,  p.  508)  even  finds  in 
some  of  it  the  evidence  of  differing  dialects:  "Wenigstens  ist 
es  kein  Zufall,  wenn  die  dentale  Tenuis  durch  Sibilans  ersetzt 

ssLagarde  edits  — wrongly,  as  I  believe  — xal  e'n-ei'  ovtu<;  Ov  iui-ijati. 

51  It  is  true,  in  general,  of  the  modern  use  of  the  Greek  Bible  for  text-critical  purposes 
that  recourse  is  had  far  too  often  to  the  hypothesis  of  divergent  Hebrew  texts,  while  therfe 
is  far  too  little  appreciation  of  the  extent  to  which  the  Greek  texts  themselves  have  been 
corrupted  in  transmission.  It  is  generally  taken  for  granted,  moreover  (see,  e.  g.,  Benzinger's 
remark  on  the  (ireek  MSS  of  Kings,  in  the  introduction  to  his  Cotnm.)  that  the  text  which 
diverges  most  from  MT  is  the  oldest  and  most  important.  But  this  is  a  criterion  which 
has  no  value  unless  it  is  supplemented  by  exact  information  as  to  the  quality  of  individual 
MSS  and  the  nature  of  translations  and  recensions.  Codex  B  and  the  L  text,  for  instance, 
usuallj  shfiwthe  greatest  divergence  from  MT,  and  in  both  cases  the  divergence  means,  as 
a  rule,  mirely  perversion  of  the  older  readings,  which  (more  nearly  agreeing  with  MT)  are 
found  in  other  MSS. 


110  Ezra  Studies 

wird,  wie  artra  (&<'D''t2n),  aT7]p,  reXficov,  bei  Luc,  durch  a^i^a, 
a^rjp,  creX/xcwy."  But  this  is  a  mistake.  These  are  scribal  blunders 
of  a  very  common  order,  which  abound  also  in  the  MSS  of  the 
ordinary  text,  and  especially  (of  course)  in  B  and  its  fellows. 

These  facts  make  it  plain  that  the  Greek  published  by  Lagarde 
is  not  at  all  "the  old  Greek  Bible  of  Palestine,"  and  often  bears 
little  resemblance  to  it.  It  is  in  part  a  mixed  text  which  is  the 
result  of  an  eclectic  process,  and  in  part  a  text  arbitrarily  con- 
structed de  novo;  besides  all  the  accidental  deterioration  which  it 
has  sufPered.  The  fact  cannot  be  emphasized  too  strongly  that 
L  in  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh,,  when  it  differs  from  the  ordinary  Greek, 
usualhj  does  not  represeni  another  Hebrew  text.  It  is  mainly,  of 
course,  a  translation  of  the  Hebrew  which  lay  before  Theodotion. 
But  this  Heb.  text  almost  everywhere  agreed  with  our  MT;  more- 
over, the  translation  is  very  well  preserved  in  the  Egyptian  MSS, 
and  it  is  only  rarely  that  L  can  improve  upon  their  readings.  It 
would  presumably  almost  never  be  the  case  that  a  correct  reading 
preserved  only  in  L  would  happen  also  to  represent  a  divergence  in 
Theodotion's  Hebrew.  The  doublet  readings  in  L,  whether  Hexa- 
.plaric  or  not,  are,  as  a  rule,  derived  either  from  our  MT  or  from  a 
manifestly  corrupt  form  of  it.  Really  helpful  corrections  of  MT 
are  extremely  rare.  One  is  to  be  found  in  Neh.  11:17,  tov  alvov 
for  nbnriJl  ;  undoubtedly  derived  from  another  Hebrew  text,  since 
Jerome's  Latin  makes  the  same  correction.  But  in  the  most  of 
the  cases  where  L  presents  variant  readings  which  sound  plau- 
sible, we  are  not  by  any  means  at  liberty  to  suppose  that 
these  were  derived  from  a  Hebrew  text;  on  the  contrary, 
they  are  pretty  certain  to  be  arbitrary  improvements,  of  one  kind 
or  another,  in  the  Greek  itself.  It  follows,  that  emendation  of 
MT  on  the  basis  of  L  alone  is  almost  never  permissible  in  these 
books ;  never,  in  fact,  except  for  the  strongest  reasons. 

All  this  is  obvious  enough ;  and  yet  our  Old  Testament  scholars, 
in  using  the  L  text  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.,  treat  it  habitually  as 
though  it  represented  a  Hebrew  text  of  its  own.     Thus  Kittel," 

'•>'  Kittel,  in  his  Biblia  Hehraica,  recently  published,  constantly  inclurlos  in  his  notes  at 
tho  foot  of  the  page  Hebrew  readings  given  on  the  sole  authority  of  L.  If 
these  "variant  readings"  are  to  have  any  significance  at  all  in  his  apparatus,  thoy  must 
be  supposed  actually  to  have  stood  in  a  Hebrew  text  and  to  have  been  rendered  by  this 
Greek.  But  of  the  great  majority  of  them  this  is  not  true.  They  are  more  excrescences  on  the 
Greek,  due  either  to  the  irresponsible  reviser  or  else  to  obvious  errors  of  Greek  transcribers. 
Nothing  corresponding  to  them  ever  stood  in  any  Hebrew  text  of  the  Chronicler's  work.  I 
have  observed  one  case,  Neh.  11 : 8,  in  which  MT  can  be  emended  in  accordance  with  a  reading 
peculiar  to  L;  but  even  here  it  may  be  that  the  oi  o5eA(/)oi  auToC  came  from  a  happy  con- 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah     111 

in  his  several  works  on  Cliron.;  Benziiiger,'^'*  in  his  commentary 
on  Chronicles ;  Bertholet,  Comni.  on  Ezr.-Neh.,  and  others.  Sieg- 
fried, Comm.  on  Ezr.-Neh.,  does  not  pay  much  attention  to  the 
examination  of  the  text. 

Allied  to  the  Lagarde  text,  but  plainly  not  belonging  to  it,  is 
the  old  Latin  translation  of  I  Esdras.  This  was  made  from  the 
Syro-Palestinian  Grreek  some  time  before  the  Lucianic  revi- 
sion; presumably  in  the  second  century  a.  d.,  since  it  is  cited  by 
Cyprian.  In  this  version  we  really  have  a  representative  of  the 
old  Syro-Palestinian  text,  and  the  aid  which  it  gives  is  important. 
The  many  additions,  corrections,  and  conflations  introduced  by 
Lucian  do  not  appear  in  it,^^  Its  text  has  come  down  to  us  in 
several  slightly  differing  forms,  which  need  to  be  re-examined. 

The  L  Greek  text,  then,  is  an  instrument  only  to  be  used  with 
the  utmost  caution.  It  is  true  that  even  in  Chron. -Ezr.-Neh.  it 
contains  a  good  deal  of  valuable  material,  not  found  elsewhere; 
but  this  is  much  less  in  amount,  and  far  more  difficult  to  secure, 
than  is  commonly  supposed.  The  quest  of  it  is  not  quite  the 
search  for  two  grains  of  wheat  in  two  bushels  of  chaff,  for  in  this 
case  the  material  in  which  it  is  imbedded  has  also  a  certain  value 
of  its  own — but  only  when  its  origin  and  true  character  are  under- 
stood. The  folly  of  "criticizing"  our  MT  by  the  use  of  a  Greek 
text  which  has  itself  not  been  criticized  at  all  is  nowhere 
more  striking  than  in  the  present-day  use  of  Lagarde's  edition. 
The  rule  usually  adopted  appears  to  be:  Take  any  Greek  reading 

jecture  and  not  from  any  real  Hobrew  reading.  For  examples  of  this  mistaken  use.  see  his 
notes  on  I  Chron.  4:41  (where  the  Greek  must  originally  have  been  Ta«  rrjjyas  as  tCpoi' exei,,  and 
its  Heb.  =  exactly  our  MT  ),  5:20  (of  course  either  €^o»)[e>)]<roi-  or  i^oTi)[eif,er)](Tav),  9:37;  12:24; 
13:1  (two  places);  16:30  (the  secontl  half-verse  transferred  bodily  from  the  Greek  of  Ps. 
96:10!);  21:20  (see  below);  24:24  (contamination  from  23:20);  II  Chron.  7:20;  9:  29  ( !) ; 
IX: 2,  29  (both  of  these  conformed  to  the  parallels  in  Kings);  22:6;  25:1;  27:4;  33:2;  Ezra 
4:23;  10:3,24;  Neh.  9:6,  32  ( !) ;  13:1.9. 

In  general,  the  apparatus  of  this  Biblia  Hebraica  in  Chron. -Ezr.-Neh.  consists  largely  of 
information  which  is  quite  worthless  for  its  intended  purpose.  The  "LXX"  notes  have 
rarely  any  significance  for  the  Hebrew  text.  In  the  L  version  of  I  Chron.  9:31,  for 
instance,  we  have  a  bit  of  corrupt  Greek  side  by  side  with  its  correct  origiual.  Why 
include  such  stuff  here?  Or  why  print  in  II  Chron.  2:13  "  LXX  +  xai  uii>au'eii',"  when  it  ia 
obvious  at  the  first  glance  that  the  verb  had  its  origin  in  a  blundering  dittography  of  the 
first  letters  of  the  following  Hebrew  word?  Plain  blunders  of  Greek  copyists  are  also 
recorded,  as  in  I  Chron.  7  :8  (twice).  The  apparatus  of  a  Hebrew  Bible  (and  a  reprint  of  MT 
at  that  I)  is  not  tlie  place  to  study  the  performances  of  tliird-rate  Greek  scribes,  interesting 
as  the  study  might  be  under  other  circumstances. 

ssSee,  for  example,  his  comments  on  I  Chron.  2:18  f.;  3:22:  U  :1,  8  (»r«pi«^iio(ra  to;  cf. 
Ex.  22:18),  11  (contamination  from  II  Sam.  23:8),  22;   15:13(1);  II  Chron.  2:12;  a5:3. 

59 Such  as  those  in  1:9-12;  2:17  (18)  ;  4 :  13,  .39,  43,  48, 60, 61 ;  5:5— to  give  only  the  examples 
which  have  already  been  mentioned.  The  incomplete  sentence  at  the  end  of  the  I  Esdraa 
fragment  is  filled  out  in  the  Latin,  but  not  in  the  same  way  as  in  the  Lucian 
Greek. 


112  Ezra  Studies 

which  seems  useful,  no  matter  whence  it  comes.  Thus  it  happens 
that  words  due  simply  to  copyists'  blunders  in  the  Greek,  others 
which  plainly  resulted  from  a  corrupt  form  of  our  MT,  and  read- 
ings which  a  closer  scrutiny  would  have  shown  to  be  merely  later 
doublet  renderings  of  the  same  text,  are  all  laid  under  contribution, 
and  new  and  strange  Hebrew  phrases,  said  to  correspond  to  them, 
are  forthwith  constructed,*'"  Since  the  conglomerate  L  text  offers 
so  much  that  is  not  found  elsewhere,  it  is  naturally  a  mine  for 
those  who  are  not  over  particular.  Klostermann,  in  the  introduc- 
tion to  his  commentary  on  the  books  of  Samuel,  quoted  in  Driver, 
Hehi'ew  Text  of  the  Boohs  of  Samuel,  p.  Hi,  has  expressed  him- 
self as  follows:  "Let  him  who  would  advance  science  .... 
accustom  himself  above  all  things  to  the  use  of  ...  .  Lagarde's 
edition  of  the  recension  of  Lucian."  Theoretically,  this  has  some 
justification— though  it  would  be  better  to  advise  students  to 
begin  by  learning  to  make  a  scientific  use  of  the  ordinary  Greek 
text;  in  practice,  there  has  thus  far  been  little  use  made  of  the  L 
text  in  any  part  of  the  Old  Testament  which  has  tended  notice- 
ably to  advance  science.  Not  one  in  twenty  of  all  the  "  emendations" 
of  the  Hebrew  text  hitherto  made  on  the  basis  of  Lucian  readings 
will  survive  any  critical  examination.  And  the  opportunities  of 
doing  harm  through  uncritical  methods  are  much  more  numerous 
here  than  elsewhere,  I  would  suggest  instead  this  maxim:  Let 
him  who  would  advance  science  keep  away  as  far  as  possible  from 

00 To  give  a  few  characteristic  examples:  In  I  Chron.  21:20  the  Chronicler  wrote 
D'^S^nmO  ■,  as  is  attested  both  by  MT  and  by  Theodotion's  transliteration  (see  above).  The 
Hebrew  word  presents  no  difficulty  whatever  in  its  context.  Theodotion's  transliteration 
was  replaced  (as  usual)  in  some  MSS  by  the  translation  Kpv^oixevoi..  In  L  this  was  cor- 
rupted (possibly  under  the  influence  of  the  Greek  of  II  Sam.  24:20,  fiia7ropei;o^i€'>'ovs,=  DTl3y> 
though  the  word  there  stands  in  an  altogether  different  clause,  and  refers  to  other  persons) 
to  TTopei/d/nei'oi.  On  the  basis  of  this  reading  Klostermann  emends  to  C^DbnmO 
( !  not  an  equivalent  of  7rop€ud;oie»'oi,  nor  graphically  similar  to  MT,  nor  at  all  suited  to  this 
context),  which  is  approved  by  Kittel,  Polychrome  Bible  smA  Comm.  In  Kittel's  BibUa 
Hebraica  there  is  a  note:  "Read  with  L  and  II  Sam.  D'^'llliy,"  a  specimen  of  textual 
criticism  which  could  hardly  be  surpassed. 

One  of  the  first  emendations  made  by  Ciuthe,  in  his  Polychrome  Ezra  and  Nehemlah,  is 
an  insertion  in  the  text  of  Ezr.  1 :3,  on  the  sole  basis  of  a  reading  in  the  Lucian  I  Esdras. 
But  no  one  who  is  well  acquainted  with  the  L  recension  could  doubt  for  a  moment  that  ita 
OS  TTpodvfj.eiTai  toO  vopevdrivai  (2:  3)  is  a  free  editorial  insertion  in  the  Greek. 

In  Neh.  4:17,  where  the  Hebrew  reads  Ql'^n  inbllJ  TC^X  (D'^'OH  a  corruption  of 
IT^^    cf.  II  Chron.  23:10),  the  L  Greek  has  a  characteristic  double  translation  xai 

avSpa  ov  aTrea-TcAAoi'  en-l  to  vSu)p,  avrtp  Koi  ottAoi'  aiiToO  eis  to  iiSuip.  Guthe  actually  tums  this  two- 
fold nonsense  into  Hebrew,  inserting  also  an  ITUX  and  the  two  prepositions  53?  and  bX  i 
and  substitutes  it  for  MTI  Kittol  also  prints  this  newly  made  Hebrew  in  his  critical  appa- 
ratus, and  Bertholct  {Coinni.)  mentions  it  with  respect. 

These  are  merely  typical  instances,  of  three  different  kinds,  one  from  each  of  the  three 
books.  The  list  could  bo  extended  to  include  nearly  all  of  the  modern  "  critical "  use  of  L 
in  Chron. -Ezr. -Neh. 


Textual  Criticism  of  Chronicles-Ezka-Xehemiah     113 

critical  operations  with  the  Luciaii  recension  until  he  has  learned 
what  it  is  and  how  to  use  it. 

There  is  one  purpose,  however,  for  which  the  attention  of 
scholars  really  needs  to  be  directed  to  the  L  text  at  once,  and  that 
is,  for  the  study  of  the  Greek  itself.  There  is  doubtless  much  to 
be  learned  from  it  as  to  the  history  of  both  Hebrew  original  and 
the  Greek  versions,  especially  the  Hexaplar,  as  well  as  in  regard 
to  the  primitive  readings  of  the  Syro-Palestinian  recension.  And 
one  of  the  first  important  undertakings  of  the  criticism  of  the 
Greek  Old  Testament  should  be  the  reconstruction,  so  far  as  it  is 
possible,  of  Theodotion's  translation  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh. 

V.       THE   critical    PROCESS    IN    RESTORING   THE    SEMITIC    TEXT 

In  investigating  the  Hebrew-Aramaic  text  of  these  books,  in 
the  part  of  the  history  covered  by  I  Esdras,  the  process  (after 
making  sure  of  the  traditional  reading)  must  always  be  the 
following. 

1.  Ascertain  the  Egyptian  Greek  text  of  the  canonical  recen- 
sion. Swete's  edition  usually  (though  not  always)  suffices  for  this 
purpose ;  and  when  it  is  used,  the  reading  of  codex  A  must  always 
be  given  the  presumption  of  superiority  over  that  of  codices  B 
and  K. 

2.  Compare  the  Syrian  text  (Lagarde's  edition)  of  the  same 
book,  bearing  in  mind  its  treacherous  character.  By  the  com- 
parison we  can  reach  approximately  the  original  reading  of 
Theodotion's  version. 

3.  By  comparing  (a)  the  reading  thus  gained  with  (/;)  the 
Latin  version  of  Jerome,  and  then  with  (c)  the  massoretic  text, 
we  can  approximate  to — and  in  most  cases  reach  with  certainty — 
the  Heb.-Aram.  text  which  was  selected,  edited,"  and  made  norma- 
tive by  the  Jewish  scholars  at  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century  a.  d. 

4.  Ascertain  the  reading  of  the  Egyptian  Greek  text  of  I 
Esdras,  using  for  this  purpose  (a)  the  text  of  A  and  the  allied 
cursives,  with  which  must  be  compared  the  witnesses  to  the 
Hexaplar  Greek,  including  (6)  codex  B,  (c)  the  Syriac  of  Paul 
of  Telia,  and  {d)  the  Ethiopic  version. 

5.  Compare  the  Syro-Palestinian  I  Esdras,  using  (a)  Lagarde's 
Greek  (with  the  greatest  caution,  since  this  particular  recension 

«i  See  above,  pp.  34  and  88. 


114  Ezra  Studies 

has  not  only  suffered  the  usual  "Lucianic"  alterations,  but  has 
also  been  very  extensively  contaminated  from  the  canonical  Ezra), 
(6)  the  old  Latin  version,  and  (c)  the  text  preserved  by  Josephus 
in  his  Antiquities.  By  thus  comparing  the  Syrian  with  the 
Egyptian  readings  of  I  Esdras  it  is  usually  possible  to  gain  the 
true  text  of  the  old  Greek  translation  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh., 
which  was  probably  made  shortly  before  the  middle  of  the  second 
century  B.  C. 

6.  Regain  the  Heb.-Aram.  text  from  which  this  translation  was 
made;  and  attempt,  through  comparison  of  this  with  the  text  of 
the  second  century  a.  d.,  to  restore  the  words  originally  written 
by  the  Chronicler,  or  found  by  him  in  the  sources  which  he  used. 
In  reasoning  from  the  old  Grreek  version  to  the  Semitic  text  which 
lay  behind  it,  one  must  bear  in  mind  that  this  translation,  while 
truly  a  "close"  one,  is  considerably  more  free  than  the  later 
renderings;  also,  that  the  Greek  text  has  been  much  longer 
exposed  to  accidental  corruption  than  that  of  Theodotion's  version. 
Many  readings  which  seem  to  point  to  variation  in  the  Semitic 
original  are  really  due  to  changes  which  have  taken  place  in  the 
Greek  itself.  And  finally,  in  comparing  the  two  parent  Semitic 
texts  with  each  other,  some  account  must  be  taken  of  their  relative 
correctness,  so  far  as  any  general  estimate  is  possible. 


THE    FIKST   CHAPTER   OF    EZRA   IN    ITS    ORIGINAL 
FORM  AND  SETTING 

I  have  shown  in  one  of  the  previous  chapters  (see  above,  pp. 
20  ff.,  33  f.)  that  our  canonical  book  of  Ezra  is  a  mutilated 
recension,  made  by  cutting  out  the  (interpolated)  Story  of  the 
Three  Youths  together  with  a  part  of  the  Chronicler'' s  own  narra- 
tive which  had  been  so  firmly  welded  to  it  by  a  redactor  as  now 
to  seem  inseparable  from  it.  I  have  also  given  (above,  pp.  50-56) 
a  translation  of  the  Story  of  the  Three  Youths  in  its  primitive 
form,  and  also  of  the  two  small  "patches"  which  were  composed 
by  the  interpolator  (pp.  57,  59)  ;  it  now  remains  to  restore  this 
portion  of  the  Chronicler's  history  to  its  original  condition, 
printing  it  as  it  stood  in  the  latter  part  of  the  third  century  b.  c, 
before  the  story  was  interpolated. 

The  complete  accomplishment  of  this  task  involves  the  retrans- 
lation,  from  Greek  into  Hebrew,  of  an  extended  passage  which  is 
now  extant  only  in  our  "First  Esdras."  Such  retranslations  are 
rarely  worth  while,  for  they  can  never  reproduce  the  exact  word- 
ing of  the  original,  and  hardly  ever  give  much  real  assistance  in 
the  cases  where  there  is  no  Semitic  text  by  which  they  can  be 
controlled.  The  present  case  is  peculiar,  however,  in  that  the 
Chronicler  is  the  writer,  and  the  matters  with  which  he  is  deal- 
ing are  nearly  all  such  as  he  has  dealt  with  repeatedly  elsewhere. 
No  other  writer  in  all  the  Old  Testament  shows  so  little  variation, 
in  his  choice  of  material  and  in  his  literary  style,  as  the  Chroni- 
cler; his  mannerisms,  stock  phrases,  lexical  and  grammatical 
peculiarities,  and  favorite  subjects,  are  everywhere  conspicuous  and 
easily  recognized.  That  is,  we  do  have  in  this  case  original 
Semitic  texts  by  which  the  translation  can  be  controlled.  Nearly 
everything  which  stands  in  this  Greek  fragment  can  be  more  or 
less  easily  paralleled  from  other  parts  of  the  Chronicler's  work. 
When  to  this  is  added  the  fact  that  the  Greek  here  is  well  pre- 
served and  its  meaning  nowhere  obscure,  while  we  know  it  to  be 
in  general  a  faithful  rendering,  it  will  be  seen  that  a  Hebrew  text 
can  be  restored  concerning  which  it  is  possible  to  feel  some  con- 

115 


116  Ezra  Studies 

fidence  that  it  everywhere  stands  near  to  what  the  Chronicler 
himself  wrote.  For  this  reason,  and  also  for  the  sake  of  demon- 
strating in  this  most  tangible  way  that  I  Esdr.  4:476-56,  62 — ^5:9 
is  a  rendering  from  the  Hebrew,  and  from  the  Hebrew  of  the 
Chronicler,  I  have  undertaken  the  retranslation.  Without  this 
last  step,  my  demonstration,  as  such,  would  be  defective. 

The  portion  of  the  Chronicler's  history  here  printed  and  trans- 
lated includes  II  Chron.  36:20,  21;  Ezra  1:1-11;  I  Esdras 
4:476-56,  62,  63;  5:1-6;  Ezra  2:l-3rt.  This  all  I  believe  to 
be  the  work  of  the  Chronicler's  own  hand,  written  originally  in 
this  order,  and  substantially  in  the  form  here  presented.  Evidence 
of  this,  beyond  what  has  already  been  given,  will  appear  in  the 
notes  appended  to  the  Hebrew  text.  There  is  no  break  in  the 
narrative,  nor  does  anything  appear  to  be  missing — unless  possibly 
the  subject  of  the  verb  in  I  Esdr.  4 :  62. 

The  proof  of  the  Chronicler's  authorship  of  the  sections  now 
extant  only  in  I  Esdr.  is  abundant  and  of  every  variety,  including 
the  constant  emphasis  laid  upon  those  things  which  the  Chronicler 
alone,  of  all  O.  T.  writers,  makes  prominent ;  the  recurrence  of  his 
favorite  phrases,  in  just  the  forms  which  he  habitually  employs;  the 
use  of  words  and  constructions  found  elsewhere  only  in  his  writings ; 
and  the  plain  traces  of  his  unique  style,  seen  even  in  this  Greek 
disguise.  Moreover,  the  manner  in  which  this  section  fills  the 
gap  between  the  first  two  chapters  of  Ezra  is  proof  of  the  strongest 
kind,  as  I  have  shown   in  detail  elsewhere  (above,  pp.  25-28). 

I  have  made  the  extract  begin  at  II  Chron.  36:20,  instead  of 
vs.  22,  for  two  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  vs.  22  (=:Ezra  1:1) 
contains  a  reference  to  the  quotation  in  vs.  21,  which  ought  there- 
fore to  be  included,  together  with  vs.  20,  which  introduces  it. 
And  in  the  second  place,  the  end  of  II  Chron.  and  the  beginning 
of  Ezra,  originally  written  in  one  piece  without  any  break,  have 
never  been  printed  continuously,  so  far  as  I  know ;  and  it  is  highly 
desirable  that  this  portion  of  the  Chronicler's  history  should  for 
once  appear  in  its  primitive  form.  Most  scholars  now  profess  to 
believe  that  Ezra,  chap.  1  was  written  by  the  Chronicler  in  con- 
tinuation of  II  Chron.,  chap.  36,  but  in  their  mode  of  dealing  with 
the  two  "books"  they  persistently  deny  the  fact.'  It  very  rarely 
happens  that  the  same  man  writes  a  commentary  on  both  Chronicles 

1  In  Kautzsch's  Heilige  Schri/t  des  A.  T.,  the  fact  that  the  order  of  the  Hebrew  canon  is 
followed  is  no  sufficient  excuse  for  printing  Ezra  before  Chronicles. 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  117 

and  Ezra-Nehemiah,  or  even  makes  a  careful  study  of  both  of  these 
divisions  of  the  history.  The  commentator  on  Ezra-Nehemiah 
finishes  his  work  without  troubling  himself  to  examine  I  and  II 
Chron.,  and  vice  versa — as  though  one  should  comment  on  half  of 
the  book  of  Ezekiel  without  closely  examining  the  other  half. 
The  present  misunderstanding  of  Ezr.-Neh.  is  due  in  no  small 
measure  to  this  traditional  blunder  of  method.  The  occurrence 
of  the  passage  Ezr.  1 :  l-3a  in  two  places  is  recognized  as  the 
result  of  an  arbitrary  rearrangement  of  the  history,  made  long 
after  the  Chronicler's  day;^  but  one  scholar  after  another  treats 
the  passage,  in  either  place,  as  though  he  had  a  lingering  feeling 
that  it  was  actually  written  twice  over  by  its  author,  or  else,  that 
it  was  "taken  over"  from  one  book  into  another.  The  climax,  in 
this  regard,  seems  to  me  to  be  reached  by  Kittel,  in  his  edition  of 
the  Hebrew  text  of  Chronicles  for  the  Polychi'ome  Bible,  where 
he  prints  this  passage  in  lif/Jit  red  (the  color  used  for  sections 
"derived  from  passages  preserved  in  our  present  O.  T."!),  thus 
obscuring  as  completely  as  possible  the  true  state  of  the  case.  It 
will  hardly  be  superfluous,  therefore,  to  print  the  verses  for  once  in 
their  original  context.^ 

2  Tho  verses  iu  question  were  not.  as  the  textbooks  say,  "added  to  the  end  of  Clironicles" 
(as  though  the  book  had  ever  had  another  ending!).  Whoever  first  cut  otJ  the  Ezr.-Neh. 
portion  made  it  begin  at  II  Cliron.  36: 22  because  with  this  verse  Cyrus  and  the  new  era  were 
introduced.  Then,  when  the  preceding  portion  of  the  history  was  also  set  apart  as  a  book 
by  itself,  it  was  made  to  overlap  the  other  by  a  few  sentences;  not  "in  order  to  provide  for 
the  book  an  auspicious  ending,"  but  either  in  order  to  preserve  evidence  of  the  fact  that  the 
two  "books"  were  originally  parts  of  the  same  whole,  and  that  this  was  the  point  of  their 
juncture,  or  else  merely  as  the  result  of  a  Cijpyist's  carelessness.  In  the  history  of  ancient 
literature  there  are  some  striking  parallels  of  this  latter  kind.  Thus  Freudcnthal,  Hellenist- 
ische  Studien,  1875,  p.  200,  speaking  of  the  MS  tradition  of  the  works  of  Eusebius:  "  Wenn 
aber  am  Endedes  ersten  und  zweiton  Buchesder  proep.  die  langen  Einleitungen  zum  zweiten 
und  drittenBucheabgeschrieben,  an  ersterStellesogar  mitten  imSatze  abgebrochen 
we r den,  so  wird  man  eine  solche  Plumpheit  nicht  Eusebios,  sondern  seinen  Abschreibern 
zur  Last  legen.  Sie  ist  aber  in  alle  Ha  ndsc  h  r  ifte  n  einged  rungen  ,  weil  alle 
Abschriften  eines  Urcodex  sind."  The  reason  why  II  Chron.  ends  with  the  word  by T  , 
without  finishingthe  sentence, may  beeitherthat  this  is  the  first  possible  stopping- 
place  after  the  mention  of  Cyrus,  or  else  that  this  word  happened  to  end  the  line, 
or  the  page,  in  the  manuscript  which  first  made  the  separation. 

3To  illustrate  further  the  current  misinterpretation  of  the  double  occurrence  of  the 
two  verses  in  question:  Kittel,  Bilcher  der  Chronik  (in  Nowack's  Handkommentar),  p.  178, 
on  II  Chron.  36:22  f.,  writes:  "Die  Worto  finden  sich  wOrtlich  auch  als  Anfangdes  kanon- 
ischen  Buchs  Esr.  l:l-.3a.  Einheit  des  Vorfassers  Vieider  Bttciior  ....  folgt  daraus  noch 
nicht.  Wie  beliebt  diose  Worte  ....  waren.  zeigt  audi  III  Esr.  2: 1  ff.,  ohne  dass  man  dar- 
aus weitergehende  SchlUsse  Ziehen  darf.  Seine  ursprttugliche  Stelle  hat  das  StUck  (wie  das 
Abbrechen  mitten  im  Satze  Esras  durch  don  Chronisten  zeigt)  bei  Esra,  mag  es  nun  durch 
den  Chronisten  selbst  oder  einen  Spftteren  hierher  gekommen  soin." 

And  in  the  Introduction,  p.  vi :  "Immerhin  kann  es  als  bedoutsam  angesehen  werden, 
dass  dieso  alten  Ergflnzcr  sicii  fttr  ihren  Zwock  [viz.  the  purpose  of  giving  the  book  of  Chron.  a 
propitious  ending]  gerado((/i  das  Buck  Esra  wandten"  (the  italics  are  mine).  It  would  be 
difficult  to  give  more  misinformation  in  this  amount  of  space.  I  have  quoted  the  passaRes 
somewhat  fully  because  they  represent  a  view  which  is  widely  held. 


118  Ezra  Studies 

A  word  ill  regard  to  the  punctuation  of  the  Hebrew  text 
which  here  follows.  Punctuation  is  as  indispensable  in  Semitic 
as  in  English  or  any  other  language,  and  it  is  time  that  some 
usable  system  were  adopted  for  our  editions  of  Old  Testament 
writings.  Unpointed  and  unpunctuated  Hebrew  selections  are  occa- 
sionally useful — just  as  unpointed  Greek  texts  are  often  used — 
for  pedagogic  purposes ;  but  when  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
are  intended  not  for  classroom  drill,  but  for  the  multitude  who 
read  them  for  the  sake  of  their  contents,  to  leave  them  without 
punctuation  is  to  leave  them  half  edited.  So  long  as  the  masso- 
retic  text  is  left  untouched,  one  can  make  a  shift  of  using  the 
division  of  clauses  and  phrases  made  by  the  "accents;"  since 
these,  though  always  inexact  and  often  misleading,  may  be  used 
as  a  poor  substitute  for  a  system  of  punctuation.  But  the  accents 
are  not  always  correctly  placed;  and,  what  is  worse,  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  rearrange  them  at  pleasure.  It  occasionally  happens,  for 
example,  that  the  massoretic  verse-division  is  incorrect.  This  does 
not,  however,  justify  any  modern  scholar  in  moving  the  sof 
2)dsfiq  (J)  to  another  place.  The  sof  pdsuq  belongs  to  a  compli- 
cated and  very  carefully  wrought  system,  in  which  the  disarrange- 
ment of  any  one  part  affects  the  rest.  A  Hebrew  text  in  which 
the  verse-dividers  are  shifted,  while  the  remaining  massoretic 
accents  are  left  as  they  were  before,  is  a  monstrosity.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  attempt  to  shift  the  other  accents.  It  often  happens 
that  the  chief  pause  within  the  verse,  marked  in  the  traditional 
punctuation  by  the  athnachtd  {^),  has  been  wrongly  indicated, 
through  misunderstanding  of  the  text.  But  moving  the  athnachtd 
to  another  place  is  like  altering  music  by  moving  an  occasional 
bar  one  or  two  notes  forward  or  back.  The  massoretic  notation 
was  made  for  all  time,  and  ought  not  to  be  tampered  with.  To 
endeavor  to  make  use  of  it  in  our  modern  emended  texts  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  to  attempt  the  impossible — and  the  undesirable. 

It  would  be  an  ill-advised  proceeding,  moreover,  to  retain  a 
few  of  these  signs  (such  as  the  sof  pdsuq,  the  athnacJdd,  and  the 
zdqef),  using  them  in  the  place  of  modern  punctuation  marks; 
first,  because  they  are  not  at  all  adapted  to  such  use,  and  second, 
because  they  already  have  a  distinct  use  of  their  own,  for  which 
it  is  important  that  they  should  be  kept.*     They  are  historically 

<The  athnachta,  for  example,  properly  belongs  in  the  middle  of  Gen.  1:1;  but  there  is 
no  place  there  for  punctuation  in  our  sense  of  the  term. 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  119 

of  real  value,  and — like  the  rest  of  the  massoretic  notation — will 
continue  to  be  useful  for  purposes  of  reference.^  But  they  ought 
to  be  an  occasional  help,  not  a  perpetual  encumbrance.  Next  to 
a  Hebrew  grammar  constructed  on  modern  scientitic  principles, 
the  chief  desideratum  of  Old  Testament  studies  at  the  present  day 
is  an  O.  T.  text  printed  and  punctuated  in  a  way  suited  to  the 
needs  of  modern  readers  and  scholars.  Not  primarily  an  emended 
text,  or  at  least,  not  altered  from  the  massoretic  except  in  the 
comparatively  small  number  of  cases  wdiere  both  the  corruption 
and  the  remedy  are  practically  certain ;  but  one  in  which  the  page 
is  freed  from  the  mass  of  bewildering  and  unnecessary  "points" 
and  "accents,"  and  some  use,  in  the  way  of  punctuation,  is  made 
of  the  Hebrew  studies  which  have  been  pursued  since  the  early 
Middle  Ages.' 

Since  the  Old  Testament  writings  are  now,  and  presumably 
always  will  be,  cited  by  chapter  and  verse ;  and  since  these  com- 
positions are,  in  fact,  made  up  of  comparatively  short  sentences, 
with  which  the  present  "verses"  are  generally  intended  to  corre- 
spond; it  is  important  that  the  end  of  the  verse  should  be  very 
distinctly  marked.  I  have  therefore  chosen  the  sign  0  for  this 
purpose.  The  simple  period  (.)  can  then  be  used  for  the  full 
stop  within  the  verse,  wherever  this  is  necessary.  For  the  divi- 
sion of  the  sentence  into  its  component  parts,  the  reversed  comma 
(t)  and  semicolon  (;)  will  usually  suffice. 

5 To  be  sure,  their  original  and  proper  use,  as  a  system  of  musical  notation,  is  now  not 
understood  at  all.  As  for  their  serving  to  divide  clauses  and  phrases,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  they  do  it  very  poorly;  indeed,  they  are  in  their  nature  incompatible  with  any  strict 
division  according  to  the  requirements  of  sense  and  rhetoric.  For  instance,  they  divide  as 
a  rule  dichotomously,  whether  the  sentence  is  thus  ct)nstructed  or  not.  Punctuation  marks 
should  show  to  the  eye  the  logical  relation  of  the  members  of  the  sentence  or  period;  this 
the  massoretic  notes  rarely  can  do.  If  one  should  set  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  to  music, 
and  then  print  the  English  text  without  punctuation  proper,  but  use  for  that  purpose  the 
bars  and  double-bars  of  the  music  printed  above  each  line,  tlie  result  would  be  much  like 
what  we  have  throughout  our  O.  T. 

•"'The  Biblia  Hebraica  recently  edited  by  a  number  of  scholars  under  the  general  super- 
vision of  Professor  R.  Kittel  shows  a  curious  mixture  of  the  obsolete  with  the  modern.  It 
is  half  Massoretic  Bible,  and  half  somethiug  else.  It  very  properly  leaves  the  last  two 
words  of  I  Sam.  10:27,  for  example,  where  tliey  are  instead  of  making  them  the  begitining 
of  11 : 1,  as  no  one  doubts  that  tliey  originally  were.  And  yet  in  every  part  of  the  O.  T.  which 
DOW  happens  to  be  recognized  by  tliese  editors  as  poetry  a  separation  into  lines  is  made, 
such  as  would  certainly  have  astonished  the  massoretes.  This  division  is  based  on  individ- 
ual judgment,  which  is  of  course  now  and  then  mistaken;  the  separation  of  lines  being 
made  in  the  wrong  place,  or  passages  originally  written  as  poetry  (such  as  Isa.44:9-20)  being 
here  invidiously  set  apart  as  prose.  All  the  bewildering  rubbish  of  "accents"  is  retained, 
and  yet  in  the  footnotes  fre(iuent  proposals  are  made  to  shift  those  signs  to  other  places, 
treating  them  as  punctuation  marks.  If  it  was  thought  desirable  to  print  the  Massoretic 
Bible  once  more,  would  it  not  have  been  better  to  do  simply  that,  leaving  modern  ideas  and 
scholarship  to  be  embodied  in  an  edition  of  another  sort,  such  as  would  be  made  in  the  case 
of  any  Greek  classic? 


1:1-11 


120  Ezra  Studies 

THE  CHROXICLER'S  NARRATIVE  OF  THE  RETURN 
FROM  THE  EXILE 

lb  rrri  .'bnz  bx  jinn  "2  n^^S'in  Hd^i^d  -b-j)  by^^  3Q'° 
^sn  nin^  i2i  nixb-;b-'    ©ens  n^sb-j  -'b-j  i:?  n^myb  VDnbi 

.nnnizj  ri'mri  rr  bD  .n^ninnd  ns  "p^^n  nnji-i  "i:?  .^"irr^^jn^ 

o  ^'  n] ir  D^:'"n'j:  n^i<b-jb 

Ezra  ,nr::n^  ^^sn  nin^  im  nibsb  .c^s  -b"j  irnisb  nns  rijizini  i' 

d:i  in^sb'^  bsn  bip  -^zlt^  ^c^s  -b-^  -ijib  n^n  ni<  ri^rr  ^^yn 

ynj^r;  ntej-j  bs  :  ens  "^b:::  -jj^i  tjs  n^'   on^^sb  nnD-pn 

n^2  lb  ntnb  ^b:?  ips  «ini  .'o^^j-in  ^ribi<  mn^   ^b  p3 

^I  have  inserted  the  words  D^llT^  'y)'^  here,  from  the  preced- 
ing context,  merely  for  convenience. 

''  bzn  is  of  course  the  country  Babylonia,  not  the  city  Babylon. 

*^The  quotation  from  "Jeremiah"  evidently  includes  the  whole 
of  the  rest  of  the  verse,  not  merely  the  next  clause,  or  the  next 
two  clauses  (as  in  Kautzsch's  Heilige  Schrift  des  A.  T.).  The 
part  relating  to  the  "70  years"  is  found  in  Jer.  25:12;  29:10, 
while  the  remainder  occurs  in  our  Bible  only  in  Lev.  26:34  f.; 
cf.  vs.  43.  It  is  possible,  but  not  probable,  that  the  Book  of 
Jeremiah  in  the  form  known  to  the  Chronicler  actually  contained 
all  this.  What  is  much  more  likely  is,  that  he  made  up  the 
citation  freely,  without  caring  to  be  exact.  The  identity  of  the 
prediction  in 'Leviticus  with  that  in  Jeremiah  would  seem  to 
any  exegete  of  his  school  to  be  assured  by  the  designation  of  the 
period  of  exile  as  a  "Sabbath,"  coupled  with  the  significant  four- 
fold repetition  of  the  number  seven  in  vss.  18,  21,  24,  and  28. 
Thus  it  would  be  quite  natural  to  combine  the  two  passages  in  a 
single  loose  "quotation,"  which  was  not  intended  to  be  direct, 
as  the  past  tenses  show. 

''On  the  computation  of  the  "seventy  years,"  see  Note  A,  at 
the  end  of  this  chapter. 

^The  evidence,  including  MT  in  II  Chron.  36:22,  strongly 
favors  "Sn  instead  of  ""STJ  . 

'^Our  massoretic  text  has  the  original  reading  here,  that  of 
I  Esdr.  is  inferior.  The  Chronicler  is  especially  fond  of  making 
these  foreign  kings  apply  to  Yahw6  the  simple  title  "God  of 
Heaven;"  thus,  for  example,  6:9,  10  (Darius  II)  ;  7:12,  21,  28 
(Artaxerxes  II).     See  also  the  note  on  the  last  words  of  vs.  3. 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  121 

Ti2?  rnbi<  ^rr  .^rzv  br^  n^n  rj^  ©r-^n^z  ^-rs  cb-i-T^-z 
,bsTw^  ^^b^^  mn-  n-  ns  pn  ,mi-"-  nr^^  nb-i-r^b  "bri 
n-i'x  nr^p-^n  br^  ,1wN!"1':-  bsv  o'nbuir^z  ti-x  n•^b^^^  ^<1^ 
.  n"^~m  '  -i^j^ni  nnim  -cDn  r^p"^  "uiix  inx-^r  .  nt  n;,  sin 
ni«sn  ^-isn  r^^pn_'  ©nbrn^z  n-i-s  n^nbi^n  n^nb  nz-:-  □>" 
.ir^n  n^^  D^-^bx^  — :-'"  'bzb  .n'^'ibm  c^rnbni  --"n  rrrrrb 

^The  L  text  of  I  Esdr.  adds  at  this  point  69  TrpoOvfielrai 
Tov  TTOpevdijvai^  i.  e.,  the  interpretative  expansion  which  is  so 
eminently  characteristic  of  this  particular  recension.  See  above, 
pp.  108,  112.  Guthe,  in  the  Polychrome  Bible,  translates  the 
words  into  Hebrew  and  inserts  them  in  his  text;  a  strange  pro- 
ceeding. 

''At  this  point  the  book  II  Cliron.  ends. 

'Guthe  {o}).  cit.)  says  of  these  last  four  words  that  they  "give 
l^rima  facie  the  impression  of  a  gloss."  One  wonders  to  whom 
they  could  give  such  an  impression,  and  what  manner  of  man  it 
could  be  who  would  append  such  a  "gloss"  as  this.  No  one  could 
be  so  likely  to  write  these  words  as  the  Chronicler  himself.  The 
comparison  of  these  verses,  2  and  3,  with  the  beginning  of  the 
letter  of  Artaxerxes  II,  Ezr.  7:12-15,  is  interesting.  There,  also, 
the  king  is  made  by  the  Chronicler  to  employ  first  the  term  "God 
of  Heaven,"  and  then  on  the  next  occasion  to  vary  this  with  •'the 
God  of  Israel,  whose  dwelling  is  in  Jerusalem." 

""I'lljl  "goods"  is  of  course  not  to  be  "emended"  to  ITjl  , 
merely  because  I  Esdr.  happens  to  mistranslate  it  in  vs.  6  (here 
in  vs.  4  there  is  a  double  rendering),  "i'lj"!  is  a  favorite  word 
with  the  Chronicler,  and  is  exactly  what  is  needed  here,  between 
the  "silver  and  gold"  and  the  "beasts"  (which  here  meant  riding- 
beasts,  cf.  Neh.  2:12,  14). 

'The  characteristic  use  of  the  preposition  b  (=  "namely")  in 
bub  ought  not  to  be  misunderstood.  It  is  exdcilij  the  same  use 
which  we  find  in  classical  Arabic  (Wright,  Gr(imm(ir\  II,  151  C), 
and  is  closely  allied  to  its  use  with  the  object  of  the  verb  in  the 
Aramaic  dialects,  and  to  the  construction  which  is  employed  in 
7:14  (see  the  note  there).  The  meaning  ''''with  reference  to'''' 
lies  at  the  root  of  all  these  uses  and  those  allied  to  them.  This 
extended  use  of  the  preposition  b ,  in  a  considerable  variety  of 
ways,  is  one  of  the  most  marked  characteristics  of  the  Chronicler's 


122  Ezra  Studies 

on;n:nr)-'^b5  b:?  .°2hb 
^^jis^z:  ''i^^nn  nrs  .r^n""  n^n  ^bp  n.s  s':iin  "^inis  -b-^nv 

style;  see  my  Composition  of  Ezra-Neh.,  pp.  16,  18  (below),  21 
(top).  The  attempt  of  Haupt,  Polychrome  Bible,  to  explain 
the  b,  here  and  in  vs.  11,  as  an  "emphatic  particle"  is  a  mis- 
taken one. 

The  omission  of  the  relative  pronoun  "I'lL'i^  here,  after  blD ,  is 
another  mark  of  the  Chronicler's  hand.     Cf.  the  end  of  vs.  6. 

•"MT  Dn"'1^2  IpTn  ,  "they  assisted  ivith  their  hands,''''  a  reading 
which  is  possible,  but  improbable.  The  familiar  idiom  "strength- 
ened their  hands,"  DrT'T'  IpTH ,  is  almost  certainly  what  was 
intended  (cf.  e.g.  Ezr.  0:22),  and  in  this  idiom  the  presence  of 
the  preposition  "2  is  forbidden  by  usage  and  analogy.  The  reading 
of  MT  is  merely  the  result  of  a  copyist's  carelessness. 

"In  this  verse  the  list  given  in  vs.  4  is  repeated,  the  words 
standing  in  the  same  order;  and  the  use  of  the  article  with 
each  noun  in  the  second  list  leads  us  to  suppose  that  the 
two  were  intended  to  be  identical.  This  fact,  coupled  with  the 
testimony  of  I  Esdr.  (eV  Trdcnv,  iv  apyvpiM  koI  /ere)  makes  it 
certain  that  we  should  read  rC33  bbn  in  place  of  ~C5  ^b^H . 
Similarly  Guthe. 

°The  emendation  of  l^b  to  Hlb  (very  often  used  by  the 
Chronicler),  following  I  Esdr.  o)?  TrXeiVrat?,'  has  already  been 
made  by  Klostermann  [Gesch.  des  Volkes  Israel,  p.  229)  and 
others,  and  is  indispensable.  The  verse  needs  no  other  emenda- 
tion, beyond  changing  the  massoretic  "punctuation."  Guthe 
makes  three  other  alterations,  no  one  of  which  can  be  permitted. 
That  the  "costly  presents"  (  n^21"J  ,  cf.  II  Chron.  32:23)  con- 
stituted the  "free-will  offering"  mentioned  in  vs.  1  is  made  as 
plain  as  possible  by  the  verb. 

PThe  relative  pronoun  is  again  omitted  after  bS  ;  see  the 
comment  on  vs.  5. 

'iMT  has  X'^iSn  here  also,  as  well  as  at  the  beginning  of  the 
verse.     It  is  very  probable,  however,  that  we  should  read  t^'^^Jl , 

'The  ei/Siis  in  the  L  text,  at  the  end  of  the  verse,  is  merely  the  result  of  dittography  of 
the  preceding  6  roC?. 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  123 

:D^sc^;  nbs^V  ©min^b  ^^^irDn  ^^-i^-zzb  n^zz^^  '^^"  '^""i^r 


since  this  is  the  verb  which  the  Chronicler  regularly  uses  in 
speaking  of  this  event  (II  Chron.  36:7,  18),  and  the  one  which 
seems  to  have  been  rendered  here  by  the  old  Greek  version 
(I  Esdr.  2:9  fJieTrjve'yKev,^  cf.  1:39  aireveyKa^  =  II  Chron.  36:7 
i^^zn ,  and  1:51  air tjvej k av  =  the  same  in  II  Chron.  36:18. 
Cf.  also  6:25  =  Ezr.  5:14,  and  8:59  =  Ezr.  8:30).  I  can  see 
no  justification  for  the  reading  "l^Clj ,  which  Guthe  proposes 
here. 

n"'  by  means  "6//  the  hand  of,"  or  "under  the  direction  of;" 
so  I  Chron.  25:2  "Ci^  T  by,  "under  the  direction  of  Asaph;" 
cf.  II  Chron.  26:13,  etc.  There  is  no  "ellipsis"  here,  and  the 
text  is  sound.  I  Esdr.  has  irapeSeoKev  avra  Mi6p(,8dTT],  and 
Batten  [Polychrome  Bible,  Ezra,  p.  57)  asserts  that  "in  Ezr. 
8:26,  33  TrapScoKev  stands  for  bp'JJ ,"  and  emends  accordingly. 
Bertholet,  Esra  mid  Neliemia,  quotes  this  with  hesitating  ap- 
proval. But  the  statement  is  true  in  neither  one  of  the  pas- 
sages cited;  in  the  former  (I  Esdr.  8:56)  the  equivalent  of  the 
verb  bp'iJ  is  arijaa^;,  and  in  the  other  (I  Esdr.  8:61)  its  equiva- 
lent is  (TTadev.  The  complementary  verb  [TrapeScoKev,  TrapeSodr]) 
is  merely  added  by  the  translator,  as  happens  over  and  over  again 
in  this  version. 

^On  the  name  "Sheshbazzar,"  and  its  rival  forms,  especially 
"Sanabassar,"  see  Note  B,  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 

'The  noun  bD^r<&^  is  a  loan-word  from  the  Greek,  as  is  quite 
generally  recognized.  It  is  probably  not,  however,  from  KapraX- 
\o<?,  "basket,"  which  is  quite  unsuital)le  here  (the  only  place  of 
its  occurrence),  but  from  Kparrip,  "bowl." 

"MT  □''i-ba;  ;  see  Note  C. 

'MT  □"Sbr'J  is  evidently  corrupt.  The  word  is  otherwise 
unknown,  and  the  only  suggested  meaning,  "knives,"  is  not 
suited  to  this  context.  Theodotion  had  the  same  reading  before 
him,  but  did  not  know  what  it  meant;  he  sim})ly  follows  the  root- 
meaning  of  the  verb  ~|br;  in  his  iraprjXXayfjLe'va.  The  old  Greek 
version,  preserved  in  I  Esdr.,  renders  by  OvicrKai,  which  is  else- 

«The  litTriyayev  of  Cod.  B  is  of  course  a  mere  copyist's  blunder. 


124  EzEA  Studies 

nis-^  ij^-n^x  "■d::'j:  D^sbs  zz^  ^^iss  .D^'oib^  nni  ^niss^" 
n-i-^r:  -^Tc^bi  znib  "D^bD  bi"  o-bi<  D^n-.s  o^bD  ,mim 
D?  ^::n'a:"::  nbyn  brn   .^nrr'ni  D^ipiri  m^^-^  ^'znj^i  D^sb^^ 

oDb-:;'n^b  bn.-^  nbi:-  ^nib^^n 

where  used  to  translate  niBp  or  ninn/J  ,  but  seems  in  all  cases  to 
be  merely  a  non-committal  rendering.  The  lists  of  names  of 
.  these  costly  vessels  and  implements  given  in  the  older  O.  T.  books 
generally  contain  the  words  aTrovhela,  (f^LoXaL,  dvicrfcac  (so  I  Esdr. 
here;  cf.  also  I  Mace.  1:22),  to  which  are  sometimes  added  one 
or  more  of  the  names  rpv^Xia,  X,a/8t8e9,  irvpela,  eirapvarpihe'; — all 
more  or  less  uncertain  as  to  their  Hebrew  equivalents.  See  for 
example  Exod.  25 :  29 ;  37 :  16,  20  ( 23 ) ;  Num.  4 : 7 ;  I  Kings  7 :  50  = 
II  Chron.  4:21  (where  the  Greek  has  omitted  several  words  by 
mistake).  There  is  one  Hebrew  word,  occurring  in  each  of  these 
lists,  of  which  D^sbri'J  might  easily  be  a  corruption,  namely 
Q^npb"-  (Greek  XayStSe?;  eTrapvarplhe'i  in  I  Kings  7:49?).  See 
Exod.  25:38;  37:23;  Num.  4:9;  I  Kings  7:49;  II  Chron.  4:21. 
This  may  be  accepted  tentatively  as  the  original  reading  here.  If 
it  i«  correctly  pointed  D^npb'J  (dual),  it  probably  means  "snuffers." 
According  to  II  Chron.  4:21,  these  were  made  for  Solomon  "of 
the  purest  gold." 

-MT  Zr''Z-2   ZZZ  ;  see  Note  C. 

""We  have  no  right  to  insert  the  article  (D^bSH).  as  is  done 
by  Guthe,  Bertholet,  and  others.  To  appeal  to  "LXX"  and 
"I  Esdras"  is  of  course  not  permissible.  The  Greek  translators 
could  not  avoid  using  the  article.  The  use  of  bD  with  a  plural 
noun  determined  in  fact  though  not  in  form  is  familiar  in  poetry, 
e.  g.  ni:r;bu:'  b^  in  Isa.  28:8;  other  examples  in  the  Lexicon  of 
Brown-Driver-Briggs.  The  Chronicler  has  precisely  the  same 
thing  in  10:3,  D^iTD  bZ  . 

^This  is  the  same  use  of  the  preposition  b  as  that  described 
above,  in  the  note  on  bsb  in  vs.  5. 

'I  have  restored  to  the  Hebrew  here  the  two  numerals  which 
follow  lniS"2  .  On  the  numbers  of  this  list,  and  the  emendations 
here  made,  see  Note  C,  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 

^The  use  of  this  infinitive  is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  the 
Chronicler's  style.  Guthe's  "emendation"  here,  based  profess- 
edly (but  not  really)  on  I  Esdr.,  is  a  singular  performance. 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  125 

by  ni-i^ys  "p^zn  '"z^  ib   .nri  ^'"']      J^^sdr 
rzy^  n^b'irr;  bD  nsi  ^ni^  ^nb'o?^  'n-is  ,*-'D';3cni  'D^^irm  ^nii—m 
-ns  -izzbz  ^-ii^bn  "^n:n  nzi^?  niins  'b^bv   ©Db-i-r*^  niiib 
"i:!::'  ^:2^  -di  .nb-i-r^  bj^  '"ii^bn  7^  n^ns  ^-ly  i<"2nb'  .nr^s 
b:?  rn^n"  bx  "n^Db-^n  7^  c^b'irn  an^n-n  bsb  znrv'   o^^rn  ns 

^The  interpolator  changed  this  to  ILT^I  ,  besides  making  the 
other  slight  alterations  which  were  necessary;  see  above,  pp.  57  fiF. 

•^As  in  II  Chron.  30:1;  Neh.  2:7,  etc.  Cf.  also  Ezr.  4:7,  11, 
17,  18,  etc. 

'^  Rendered  by  oUovofio'i  by  this  same  translator  in  I  Esdr. 
8:64  (  =  Ezr.  8:36). 

'Rendered  by  roirdpx^i'i  also  Dan.  3:2  f.  (same  translator);  cf. 
also  vs.  48  in  this  chapter.  The  most  common  rendering  is 
eirapxo^,  I  Esdr.  8:64;  6:3,  7,  etc.  But  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
freedom  in  the  translation  of  these  titles,  and  the  textual  tradition 
of  a  succession  of  them  is  likely  to  be  untrustworthy.  Certainty 
is  impossible. 

*■  I'J:  is  often  translated  by  arpaTrjyo'i ;  so  Dan.  10: 13,  20  (twice) ; 
cf.  also  II  Chron.  32:21,  etc. 

^Cf.  Dan.  2:48  (Theod.)  and  the  Heb.  of  Ezr.  9:2.  Possibly 
these  last  two  titles  should  be  transposed.  If  the  original  Hebrew 
text  of  the  verse  really  contained  four  such  nouns  (as  seems  highly 
probable  from  vs.  49,  where  they  appear  in  the  contrary  order), 
then  it  is  pretty  certain  that  these  which  I  have  given  were  the 
four. 

''Often  used  thus  by  the  Chronicler;  cf.  II  Chron.  2:7;  Ezr. 
2:63;  Neh.  7:65;  8:14,  15;  10:31;  13:1,  19,  22.  In  Neh.  2:7  we 
have  a  very  close  parallel  to  this  passage. 

'The  Chronicler's  favorite  and  characteristic  way  of  continu- 
iner,  with  the  use  of  the  substituted  b  .  Cf,  for  example  Ezr.  7:28: 
"before  the  king  and  his  counselors  and  before  all  (i"b1)  the 
officers,"  etc.     So  also  7: 14. 

''See  my  remarks  on  the  rendering  of  this  phrase  in  I  Esdras, 
above,  p.  83. 

'These  words  are  quoted  in  Ezr.  3:7. 

■"Cf.  Ezr.  6:8;  I  Esdr.  6:27. 

"As  in  Ezr.  1:1,  and  commonly  in  the  latest  O.  T.  books  in 
speaking  of  the  Persian  kingdom. 


126  Ezra  Studies 

oon^^ri:  'bi^  5<^n^  j^b  "•^snT^jni^^  HmSI  pel  ^ti^Vi  bD  .nin-in 
i-ir  ■'Di  f'HTj  ^bn  Dnb  n^nn  ^^ithj^^  n-i^s^  -p^n  bsV" 
^I^Dzb  nnbv   oan^n^i  p  ^™  n^rj^  "D^nssn  nj^  or^iisn 

.•^nppnb  Qn^b:?  'HIis^d  ."nvn  or  nnrjn  b::?  n^bi:?  ^nib3?nb^" 

°This  word  does  not  happen  to  be  used  by  the  Chronicler  out- 
side this  chai^ter;  it  is  pretty  certainly  the  one  employed  by  him 
here,  however. 

PCf.  Dan.  2:10  {Svvdarr]^),  15;  also  Ezr.  4:20,  etc. 

iCf.  with  these  titles  the  list  in  vs.  47,  and  see  the  notes  there. 

'More  likely  than  by,  as  the  meaning  is  "enter  with  authority," 
rather  than  "attack"  as  an  enemy. 

*Cf.  the  use  of  the  same  verb,  rendered  by  hiaKparovaLv.  in  the 
second  half  of  the  verse. 

'With  this  clause  cf.  Ezr.  7:24  =  1  Esdr.  8:22,  a  passage  also 
composed  by  the  Chronicler, 

"I  Chron.  27:25;  cf.  also  Neh.  6:2. 

"Undoubtedly  the  verbal  noun  which  was  used,  though  it  is 
not  found  elsewhere  in  the  Chronicler's  writings. 

^In  I  Esdr.  to  lepov  is  the  standing  equivalent  of  D^Jlbi^n  ri''2  ; 
see  for  examples  1:8  (II  Chron.  35:8);  7:7  (Ezr.  6:17);  8:13, 
17,  22  (  =  Ezr.  7:16,  19,  24);  8:59,  64  (  =  Ezr.  8:30,  36);  8:78, 
88  (  =  Ezr.  9:9;  10:1) ;  9:1,  6  (=Ezr.  10:6,  9).  The  equivalent 
of  bDT!  in  I  Esdr.  is  usually  vao^. 

'^So  also  8:19  (Ezr.  7:22),  and  cf.  especially  I  Chron.  29:7. 

yCf.  Neh.  10:35,  36,  etc.;  and  see  the  note  on  DVl  DV ,  etc., 
in  my  Comp.  of  Ezr. -Neh.,  p.  25.  For  the  trans.,  cf.  I  Esdr.  5:50; 
6:29,  KaO^  rjfiepav. 

^The  construction  riDIHnb  1^  is  also  possible — for  the  Chron- 
icler, but  for  no  other  O.  T.  writer.  See  Driver's  list  (in  his 
l7itrod.)  of  constructions  characteristic  of  the  Chronicler,  no.  38. 
But  the  finite  verb — the  usual  construction — is  more  probable. 

^The  Greek  translator  misunderstood  this  infinitive.  He  sup- 
posed it  to  be  a  continuation  of  rinbl ,  vs.  51,  and  to  be  governed 
by  nn j"'1 ,  vs.  49;  whereas  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  a  continuation 
of  "Tl^b  ,  and  dependent  on  nrb  .  The  mistake  was  made  all 
the  easier  by  the  position  of  the  infinitive  ^^"ipnb ,  which  the 
translator  seems  to  have  connected  with  the  following  words; 
see  below.      With  Kapirovadai  as  the  rendering  of  rlb^n  ,  cf .  the 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  127 

translation  of  nbi?  by  Kapirwixa,  Exod.  30:9;  40:6,  10,  etc.,  and 
by  KdpTr(oai<;,  Lev.  4:10,  18;  Job  42:8,  The  Syr. -Hex.  renders 
here  by  .  ^v-^ . 

''See  the  note  on  riwUJQ  nj'J3  in  vs.  51.  One  of  the  Chronicler's 
favorite  phrases. 

•^ Another  word  which  the  Chronicler  is  fond  of  using,  and 
evToXr)  is  one  of  the  usual  equivalents.  Cf.  Neh.  10:33;  11:23; 
13:5;  II  Chron.  29:25,  etc.  This  idea  of  the  ritual  as  definitely 
prescribed  by  divine  law  is  always  made  prominent  by  the 
Chronicler;  cf.  also  II  Chron.  35:12  f.;  Neh.  8:15,  18;  10:35,  37, 
etc.     The  construction  with   b"  here,  as  in  Neh.  11:23. 

^The  usual  equivalent  of  irpoacjiepeiv;  cf.  e.  g.  1:10  (II  Chron. 
35:12);  6:30  (Ezr.  6:10);  8:63  (Ezr.  8:35). 

^It  is  generally  supposed  that  this  verse  speaks  of  a  command- 
ment of  seventeen  (!)  daily  offerings  on  the  altar.  Commenta- 
tors usually  content  themselves  with  wondering  whence  the  writer 
of  the  passage  obtained  his  information;  so  e.  g.,  Fritzsche, 
Comm.,  echoed  by  Guthe  in  Kautzsch's  Apokryphen.  But  the 
cTTTa  Kal  heKa  is  found  only  in  the  Egyptian  Greek  and  the  ver- 
sions made  from  it,^  and  it  is  not  present  in  either  the  Lucian 
recension  or  the  earlier  Syrian  Greek  represented  by  the  Latin 
version.  It  therefore  plainly  originated  in  some  clerical  blunder 
in  an  early  Egyptian  Greek  MS.  The  original  translation  was,  in 
all  probability,  koL  iirl  to  dvcnacrrrjpiov  oXoKavTco/jiaTa  Kapirovadai 
Kad'  'qp.epav,  Kada  exovaiv  ivToXijv,  en  he  Kal  Trpoacfjepeiv  dXXa 
rdXavra  BeKu  Kar  iviavrov.  This  would  account  for  both  the 
Syrian  and  the  Egyptian  readings,  since  the  irpoa^epeLv^  wrongly 
used  by  the  translator  (see  the  note  above),  was  sure  to  be  con- 
nected soon  with  evroXrjv,  whereupon  the  corruption  of  eVt  8e  koI 
to  eTTTo,  Kal  SeKa  would  be  very  easy.  Observe  that  the  Lucian 
text  inserts  irpoa^epeiv  a  second  time,  besides  making  other  stylistic 
alterations  in  the  usual  manner. 

'See  the  note  on  the  same  phrase  in  vs.  51. 

^More  likely  than  nVnb  .  This  is  a  construction  often  substi- 
tuted for  the  infinitive  by  the  Chronicler;  see,  e,  g,,  Neh,  2:8; 
10:31;   13:1, 

^As  in  Jer,  34:8.     See  further  the  note  on  vs.  49,  above, 

Ht  is  found  in  the  Hexaplar  Syriac,  thouKh  not  in  Lagarde's  odition;  see  the  reading 
of  the  MS  which  I  liavo  published  above,  p.  5.    It  is  also  in  the  Ethiopic. 


128  Ezra  Studies 

D":nbn  b^bV'^  o'nn^rzbi  nnb  .n-3?n  n^Dnb  b-n?^  'D^biyn 
o  nn  "  Q^m-^-j  ni2T}  nrs  '"  n^jnbn  nDh^i '  nz'zn  in^ ''"  D^biyn 
Dbujin^i  n^-n  ''nbr  pt:;5<  nvn  i:^  rnn"2  nnb  ^n^  D^ibbv 
'n-pbn  onb  nnb  nns  n^3?n  n«  ^n^T^isn  bsbV"    o^niznnb 

o "  nir^i 

'n/3oo-/3ai'yeti'  for  nby  ;  cf.  8:1  (Ezr.  7:1,  6),  and  7rp6(T/3aai<i 
for  r^TQ,  Josh.  15:7. 

■^This  is  of  course  the  place  for  the  verse-division. 

'This  verse  and  the  following  verses  are  taken  up  with  the 
Chronicler's  own  pet  interests,  r\j'2  here  exactly  as  in  II  Chron. 
31:1,  where  the  whole  passage  (vss.  2-4)  affords  a  close  parallel. 
Cf.  also  Neh.  12:41,  47;  13:10.  The  Greek  rendering  x^^PVl^^, 
"wage,"  is  an  excellent  one. 

■"These  "priestly  robes"  were  very  important  in  the  eye  of  the 
Chronicler.  Cf.  Ezr.  2:69;  Neh.  7:69,  71.  The  form  of  the 
phrase  here  can  hardly  have  been  other  than  the  one  which  I  have 
written.     For  the  Greek  rendering  cf.  I  Esdr.  5:44. 

»Cf.  Ezr.  8:17;  Neh.  10:37;  II  Chron.  31:2,  etc. 

°Cf.  especially  Neh.  13:10,  and  see  the  note  on  the  preceding 
verse. 

pFor  this  form  of  words  cf.  II  Chron.  6:5. 

'J  The  Chronicler  uses  both  the  qal  (I  Chron.  28:20;  II  Chron. 
8: 16,  etc.)  and  the  piel  (II  Chron.  31:  7)  of  nb^ . 

""The  niphcd  infinitive,  as  in  Hag.  1:2;  Zech.  8:9.  Cf. 
also  I  Chron.  22:19;  Ezr.  1:11,  and  the  hophal  infin.  in  Ezr. 
3:11. 

^Cf.  Neh.  11:19;  13:22.  The  Chronicler  intends  here  his 
Levitical  "gate-keepers;"  see  also  II  Chron.  23:4-7;  Neh.  7:1; 
12:  25,  etc.,  and  the  following  note.  For  him,  the  Levites  are  the 
first  in  war  as  well  as  in  peace.  Josephus  (xi,  3,  8)  interprets 
correctly:   roU  (j)v\a^t  rr)?  TroXeeo?  Kal  rov  vaov. 

'The  most  likely  equivalent  of  KKrjpovi  on  general  grounds; 
see  also  especially  Lev.  6:10  (17);  Deut.  18:8,  where  the  same 
word  is  used  and  the  same  thing  is  meant,  namely  the  allotment 
made  to  the  Levites. 

"*Oi/rft)wa,  "wages,"  is  too  general  a  term  to  give  any  certainty 
in  retranslating.  T&T/l  is  perhaps  as  good  as  anything,  see 
II  Chron.  31:19;  but  nVrj   (Neh.   12:44,47;  13:10)  or   ni::?J 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  129 

\^..  ...... 

Q'uri^  n^n-i  ''nninni  Dn-"jjn  "^n-^x^i 

o^nn-^nzi  nn-ni-*^wSi  Dn^izyi  on^niDm  nrrz^^  nrrm  ,mbrb 


(Neh,  13:5,  cf.  10:33,  and  the  rabbinical  use  of  the  word)  would 
also  do  very  well. 

At  this  point  the  interpolator  made  his  second  insertion,  vss. 
57-61 ;  see  above,  pp.  58  f. 

^  It  is  of  course  possible  that  the  subject  of  the  verb  (such  as 
UVn  blD ,  or  nbl3in  ■'D^  bD)  originally  followed  here,  but  was 
removed  by  the  interpolator.  This  supposition  is  not  necessary, 
however. 

"^  As  so  often  in  the  writings  of  the  Chronicler.  This  clause  has 
a  close  parallel  in  I  Chron.  29:20,  ^Tlb^  HIH^b  bnpH  bS  ^Dnn""! 
On^nii^,  cf.Ezr.  7:27,  etc. 

"  This  phrase  does  not  occur  elsewhere,  and  my  rendering  is 
merely  tentative.  "Ac^eo-i?  =  nnjTi  in  Esth.  2: 18,  and  Symmachus 
translates  tiriTl  by  dvecn'^  in  Ex.  8:11  (15).  The  Latin  has 
remissionem  et  refrigerium. 

y  See  the  note  on  vs.  51. 

^  As  in  II  Chron.  6:  33;  7: 14,  etc. 

,^'EKQ)do)uiXovro  (elsewhere  in  the  O.  T.  only  Esth.  3:15)  is 
plainly  one  of  the  free  renderings  so  often  found  in  this  version. 
The  Hebrew  verb  must  have  been  in"::"J]"'1 ,  cf.  II  Chron.  29:9, 
36;  30:25;  Neh.  12:43  f.,  etc. 

•"For  this  combination,  "songs  and  rejoicing,"  see  Neh.  12:27; 
II  Chron.  23: 18,  etc.  Hlin  in  I  Chron.  16:27;  Neh.  8: 10;  Ezr. 
6:16  (written  by  the  Chronicler). 

*=So  very  frequently  in  the  Chronicler;  e.  g.,  II  Chron.  7:9; 
30:21;  35:17;  Ezr.  6:22;  Neh.  8:18. 

•^Thus  for  example  Ezr.  7:1. 

^  One  of  the  favorite  phrases  of  this  writer.  Cf.  Ezr.  2:59;  7 :  28 ; 
8:1;  10:16,  and  for  this  form  of  the  words  I  Chron.  7:7,  40;  24:4. 

'^For  the  use  of  the  preposition  (Greek  Kara)  cf.  I  Esdr.  1:5 
(=11  Chron.  35:5),  etc. 

'^For  the  servants  and  the  cattle  cf.  Ezr.  2:65  (same  Greek 
words  in  I  Esdr.  5:41)  and  Ezr.  1:4,  6. 


130  Ezra  Studies 

. "  n"Fib::'jni  n^Enzi  "  D^n^^jjz  o^pnir^j  Dn^nj^  b jV   © "  nib-jjn 

o  nnib:'"n  ^  Dni<  D^nbiri 


^Changed  by  the  interpolator  to  "Darius;"  see  the  note  on 
4:47. 

'  The  numeral  following  the  noun,  after  the  manner  so  common 
in  the  Chronicler;  Ges.-Kautzsch  §  134,  c.  The  "horsemen"  as  in 
Ezr.  8:22  (Chr.);  Neh.  2:9. 

^  The  characteristic  'b  13' ,  so  sure  a  mark  of  the  Chronicler's 
hand;  see  my  Composition  of  Ezr  a- Neh.,  p.  19.  For  cnroKara- 
arrjaai  =  2^V:n  ,   cf.  6:25  (Ezr.  6:5). 

'The  preposition  b  as  in  Ezr.  2:  1,  etc. 

""It  is  obvious  that  the  Heb.  text  here  was  slightly  corrupt; 
vs.  2  should  end  at  this  point.  The  Chronicler  hardly  meant  to 
say  that  King  Cyrus  sent  a  military  band  of  musicians  along  with 
the  returning  exiles;  those  who  played  the  instruments  were  the 
children  of  Israel,  as  usual.  Uai^eiv  is  of  course  pn'lT  ;  and  this 
verb  in  the  sense  "play  upon"  a  musical  instrument  is 
construed  with  3, .  The  source  of  the  text-corruption  is  thus 
evident:  The  eye  of  the  copyist  strayed  from  DlblT^  to  D"'"i'^Tr2 , 
etc.,  just  below;  he  accordingly  added  these  three  nouns,  and  then 
returned  and  wrote  the  remainder  of  the  clause.  Cf.  I  Chron.. 
13:8  (II  Sam.  6:5);  15:29;  25:6  f.;  II  Chron.  23:18;  29:28;' 
Neh.  12:27.  The  Chronicler's  especial  fondness  for  this  musical 
pageant  is  well  known. 

°  Generally  used  in  these  lists  of  instruments  just  as  though 
"I'^IIJ  were  the  name  of  one  of  them.  MovaiKiov  also  in  5:  57  (59), 
but  there  1"'12J  is  not  found  in  our  Hebrew. 

°  AvXo'i  for  D'^bisbil  also  in  II  Sam.  6:5.  The  Chronicler  is 
so  fond  of  the  instrument  D^Plbll'J  that  it  was  probably  not  miss- 
ing here. 

PThe  Greek  has:  kuI  iiroLTjaev  avroU  avvavaj^rfvai  ixer'  eKeCvcov, 
which  is  nonsense,  and  a  particularly  good  example  of  mis- 
translation. The  Greek  translator  read  Dn^5  Dnb^^ ,  "and  he 
sent  them  with  them,"  instead  of  the  correct  Dn>5  DnblTl ,  "and 
sending  them"  (on  their  way).  The  piel  of  "buj  is  the  stem 
elsewhere  used  with  this  meaning,  and  that  fact  may  have  misled 
him.     Josephus,  it  is  to  be  noticed,  emends  the  clause  rightly. 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  131 

pi:ir  p  y^'j^i  r^nif,  -:-  crirs  ':n  "n^:nbn"^'  o'nirr:nnb 
nnsir:j"j  tit  n^n'^  /:s^nbsT2J  p  bnn^  ^'in  cp^^^i  ^rr-i'^  p 
.'013  "jb^  ^niD  n^iDb-^b  -n^judn  "Dm'    ©m^n"  i:mij"2  y-^s 

[©"'jjihb  insin  1^2  ^ihn 

'iCf.  Ezr.  2:1;  8:1;  Neh.  7:4-6;  12: 1,  etc. 

"■Thus  [Trarpiai)  our  translator  renders  this  same  expression  in 
the  two  other  eases  where  it  came  before  him:  5 :  37  ( =  Ezr.  2: 59) 
and  9: 16  (  =  Ezr.  10:  16).  The  Chronicler  is  fond  of  the  phrase, 
nsing  it  in  II  Chron.  31:17  and  more  than  a  dozen  other  passages. 

*See  the  note  on  vs.  1. 

'  This  translator  uses  fiepLSapxia  for  "^Fi'm  also  in  8 :  28 
(=  Ezr.  8:1).  and  this  Hebrew  word  is  the  only  one  to  expect 
here.  The  Chronicler  is  the  only  O.  T.  writer  to  use  it;  and  this 
particular  form  [hHJipael  infin.  with  third  plur.  suffix)  occurs 
also  in  I  Chron.  4:  33;  7:  5,  7,  9,  40;  9:  22;  II  Chron.  31: 16;  Ezr. 
8:1.     A  striking  instance. 

"Greek  simply  ol  UpeU',  but  the  preposition  probably  stood  in 
the  original,  and  was  dropped  by  accident  because  of  the  D  just 
preceding.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  Chronicler  that  he  should 
mention  Jeshua,  the  representative  of  the  priests,  before  Zerub- 
babel,  on  this  occasion  when  they  are  first  introduced. 

"" Greek,  Kal  laaKetfi  6  rov  Zopo^a^eX  (the  L  text,  character- 
istically, 6  ical  Zo/ooy3a/3e\ ! ) .  The  corruption  of  the  Hebrew 
underlying  this  was  very  slight:  the  last  two  letters  of  the  name 
"Seraiah"   were    dittographed ;    and  then,  of  necessity,  the    *Q, 

was  read   p .      The   text   thus   became    iT'lb    p yi^"' 

bnS^T  (1)2  □pp(n^) .  For  the  Dp^  — which  must,  in  any  case, 
have  been  the  origin  of  tliis  leoaKei/x — cf.  Ezr.  1:5.  For  this 
use  of  the  preposition  (almost  a  "3  of  accompaniment")  cf. 
II  Chron.  22:1,  D^'^^n  =  "bringing  the  Arabs  with  them," 
cf.  21:16.  If  it  were  not  for  this  exact  parallel  —  and  for  the 
fact  that  the  Chronicler  is  notoriously  a  law  unto  himself  in  the 
use  of  prepositions — I  should  have  emended  in  some  other  way; 
for  example,  bza^TI  ^<^^  Dp^l . 

'"'So,  e.  g.,  Ezr.  3:8.  In  this  verse  the  hand  of  the  interpolator 
appears  for  the  last  time:  see  above,  p.  61. 

"The  phrase  used  so  often  by  the  Chronicler. 

y Greek,  rov  Trpcorov  /at/i/o?  (arbitrarily  revised  in  L).     This  is 


132  Ezra  Studies 

Ezr.  2:1-3  ^iiji^^:  Hb^H  n':;5<  .nbi^n  ^2-&q  D^b'yn  hd^t^h  ^:-  nbj^i  2^ 
T^i<^   oin-yb  •^\^  .min^l  ob-^j^n-b  izVoj'n  ^bznb  bnz  -jb-j 
-,'dbn  •'D'HT^  ^^rjn:  nrj3?n  n^niy^  n;7jnD  :?vj::  banni  d^"  ^i<n 


not  the  result  of  mistranslation,  but  of  corruption  of  the  Greek. 
The  original  reading  was  t^  tt/jcott;  tov  fiijvo'i.  The  nj  before  rov 
was  dropped  by  accident,  and  the  article  was  then  made  to  agree. 

The  reason  why  the  excision  of  the  interpolation  was  made  at 
just  this  point  is  obvious;  see  also  the  statement  of  the  case 
above,  p.  34. 

^These  three  names  are  given  correctly  in  Neh.  7:7,  as  the 
comparison  of  I  Esdr.  shows. 

*  Corrected  according  to  Neh.  and  I  Esdr. 

^The  interpretative  addition  in  I  Esdr.  5:8,  tmv  irpoTryov/xevfov 
avTMv,  probably  had  no  Hebrew  original.  Cf.  the  similar  addition 
in  vs.  9. 

The  verse  must  end  at  this  point,  not  after  the  following  clause. 

TRANSLATION 

36^" And  (the  Chaldean  king)  carried  away  to  Babylonia  those 
left  from  the  sword,  and  they  were  servants  to  him  and  his  sons 
until  the  rise  of  the  kingdom  of  Persia,  ''^n  fulfilment  of  the  word 
of  Yahw6  by  the  mouth  of  Jeremiah,  'until  the  land  had  enjoyed 
her  sabbaths;  all  the  days  that  she  lay  waste  she  rested,  to  the 
completion  of  seventy  years.' 

1'  But  in  the  first  year  of  Cyrus  king  of  Persia,  in  fulfilment 
of  the  word  of  Yahw^  by  the  mouth  of  Jeremiah,  Yaliw^  stirred 
the  heart'"  of  Cyrus  king  of  Persia,  so  that  he  sent  a  proclamation 
through  all  his  kingdom,  even  in  writing,  saying:  ^Thus  saith 
Cyrus  king  of  Persia:  All  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  are  given 
to  me  from  Yahw6  the  God  of  heaven,  and  he  has  given  me 
commandment  to  build  him  a  house  in  Jerusalem  which  is  in 
Judea.  ^Whoever  is  among  you  of  all  his  people,  may  his  God 
be  with  him,  and  let  him  go  up  to  Jerusalem  which  is  in  Judea, 
and  build  the  house  of  Yahw6  the  God  of  Israel;  he  is  the  God 

'0 Literally  "spirit;"  so  also  in  vs.  5. 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  133 

who  dwells  in  Jerusalem.  *  And  each  one  of  the  Remnant,"  in  any 
place  where  he  sojourns  let  the  men  of  his  place  assist  him  with 
silver  and  gold,  with  goods  and  beasts  of  burden ;  in  addition  to 
the  freewill  offering  for  the  house  of  God  which  is  in  Jerusalem. 

^Then  arose  the  chief  of  the  fathers  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  and 
the  priests,  and  the  Levites;  namely  all  whose  heart  God  stirred, 
to  go  up  and  build  the  house  of  Yahw6  which  is  in  Jerusalem. 
''And  all  those  round  about  them  strengthened  their  hands  in  every 
way ;  with  silver  and  gold,  with  goods  and  beasts  of  burden ;  and 
with  costly  things'^  in  abundance  from  all  those  who  voted  gifts. 

^And  king  Cyrus  brought  forth  the  vessels  of  the  house  of 
Yahw6  which  Nebuchadnezzar  had  brought  away  from  Jerusalem 
and  deposited  in  the  house  of  his  god.  *And  Cyrus  king  of  Persia 
gave  them  out  by  the  hand  of  Mithradates  the  treasurer,  and  he 
numbered  them  to  Sheshbazzar  the  prince  of  Judah.  'And  this 
is  the  number  of  them:"  a  thousand  basins  of  gold;  a  thousand 
basins  of  silver;  nine  and  twenty  pairs  of  snuffers;  '"thirty  bowls 
of  gold;  two  thousand  four  hundred  and  ten  bowls  of  silver;  and 
a  thousand  other  vessels.  "All  the  vessels  of  gold  and  silver 
were  five  thousand  four  hundred  and  sixty-nine.  All  these 
Sheshbazzar  brought  up  when  the  returning  exiles  went  up  from 
Babylonia  to  Jerusalem. 

4*''' And  Cyrus  the  king  wrote  for  him  letters  to  all  the  satraps  iEsdr._ 
and  governors  and  captains  and  deputies,  commanding  them  to 
aid  him  and  all  those  who  were  going  up  with  him  to  build 
Jerusalem.  *^And  he  wrote  letters  to  all  the  governors  in  the 
province  Beyond  the  River,  and  to  those  in  Lebanon,  command- 
ing them  to  bring  cedar  wood  from  Lebanon  to  Jerusalem,  and 
to  aid  him'*  in  building  the  city.     ^''And  concerning  the  freedom 

"I.  e.,  the  "Remnant"  of  Israel,  a  standing  phrase  in  Jewish  holy  writ. 
Here,  the  returning  Remnant. 

'-I.  e.,  gifts  for  the  temple  and  the  public  worship. 

'•*We  have  no  reason  to  be  surprised  by  these  numbers,  either  because  of 
the  large  size  of  some  of  them,  or  because  of  the  proportionately  very  small 
size  of  the  two  which  stand  in  the  middle  of  the  list;  first,  because  we  know 
neither  the  character  nor  the  office  of  these  utensils;  and  second,  because  the 
Chronicler  undoubtedly  invented  all  the  numbers  to  suit  himself,  and  we  do 
not  know  what  considerations  may  have  guided  him. 

'*Cf.  Ezr.  6:8,  where  these  same  governors  and. other  officials  are  com- 
manded by  Darius  to  assist  the  Jews  in  building  the  temple;  also  7:21(Chr.), 
where  they  are  ordered  by  Artaxerxes  to  aid  Ezra.  This  verse  (I  Esdr.  4:48) 
IS  the  one  which  is  expressly  referred  to  in  Ezr.  3:7. 


134  EzKA  Studies 

of  all  the  Jews  who  went  up  from  his  kingdom  to  Judea,  he  wrote 
that  no  ruler,  deputy,  governor,  or  satrap  should  forcibly  enter 
their  doors;  ^"that  all  the  territory  which  they  should  possess 
should  be  free  from  tribute  ;^^  and  that  the  Edomites  should  relin- 
quish the  villages  of  the  Jews  which  they  had  seized.  ^'  For  the 
building  of  the  temple  he  ordered  twenty  talents  to  be  given 
yearly  until  it  should  be  finished;  ^^and  for  offering  the  whole 
burnt  sacrifices  upon  the  altar  day  by  day,  according  as  they  had 
commandment  to  offer  them,  ten  other  talents  yearly.'®  ^^For  all 
those  who  went  up  from  Babylonia  to  build  the  city  he  com- 
manded that  freedom  should  be  given  both  to  them  and  to  their 
children.  ^*To  all  the  priests  that  went  up  he  commanded  to 
give  the  wages,  and  the  priests'  garments  in  which  they  minister. 
"And  to  the  Levites  he  ordered  to  give  their  portions,  until  the 
day  when  the  house  should  be  finished  and  Jerusalem  builded. 
*^And  he  commanded  that  all  those  guarding  the  city  should  be 
given  allotments  and  fees. 

''"Then  all  the  people'^  blessed  the  God  of  their  fathers,  because 
he  had  given  them  release  and  relief,  ''Hhat  they  might  go  up  and 
build  Jerusalem  and  the  house  of  God  that  is  called  by  his  name. 
And  they  held  festival,  with  music  and  rejoicing,  for  seven  days. 

5 'After  this,  there  were  chosen  to  go  up  the  chief  men  of 
the  families,  according  to  their  tribes;  with  their  wives  and  their 
sons  and  daughters,  their  men-servants  and  their  maid-servants, 
and  their  cattle.  ^And  Cyrus  sent  with  them  a  thousand  horse- 
men, to  bring  them  to  Jerusalem  in  safety.  ^  And  all  their  brethren, 
playing  upon  musical  instruments,  drums,  and  cymbals,  sent  them 
on  their  way  as  they  went  up. 

*And  these  are  the  names  of  the  men  who  went  up,  accord- 
ing to  their  families,  in  their  tribes,  by  their  genealogy.  ^Of  the 
priests,  the  sons  of  Phineas  and  of  Aaron,  Jeshua,  son  of  Jozadak, 
son  of  Seraiah;  and  there  rose  up  with  him  Zerubbabel,  son  of 
Shealtiel,  of  the  house  of  David,  of  the  family  of  Perez,  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah;  ^in  the  second  year  of  the  reign  of  Cyrus  king 
of  Persia,  in  the  month  Nisan,  on  the  first  day  of  the  month. 

'^With  this  and  the  preceding  verse  cf.  especially  Ezr.  7:24. 

16  Cf.  with  this  verse  especially  Ezr.  6:8-10;  7:21-24. 

"Or  simply:  "Then  they  blessed,"  as  the  Greek  has  it.  But  there  is 
some  probability  that  a  subject  of  the  verb  originally  stood  here,  and  was 
removed  by  the  interpolator.     With  the  whole  verse  cf.  Ezr.  9:8,  9. 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  135 

2'  And  these  are  the  men  of  the  province  who  went  up  from 
among  the  exiled  captives  whom  Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Baby- 
lon, had  carried  away  captive  to  Babylonia;  and  who  returned 
to  Jerusalem  and  Judea,  each  to  his  own  city;  "those  who  came 
with  Zerubbabel,  Jeshua,  Nehemiah,  Azariah,  Raamiah,  Naha- 
mani,  Mordecai,  Bilshan,  Mispereth,  Bigvai,  Rehum,  Baanah. 
^The  number  of  the  men  of  Israel:  Of  the  sons  of  Parosh,  etc. 

Then  follows  the  list  of  retnrning  exiles^  a  list  composed  for 
this  purpose  by  the  Chronicler  himself,  and  deliberatehj  repeaied 
by  him  {to  add  as  much  as  possible  to  its  importance)  in  Neh., 
chap.  7,  in  his  appendix  to  the  Memoir  of  Xehemiah. 


NOTE  A  (on  II  Chron.  36:21) 

The  Seventy  Years. — Our  commentators  have  been  altogether 
unable  to  explain  the  computation  of  the  '■^seventy  years,"  and  no 
wonder.  The  beginning  of  this  "Sabbath  period"  was  of  course 
the  destruction  of  the  temple  and  cessation  of  the  cult,  in  the 
year  586.  But  it  was  only  48  years  later  than  this,  in  538,  that 
Babylon  fell  into  the  hands  of  Cyrus,  and  the  Persian  rule  began; 
and  in  the  next  following  year,  the  second  year  of  Cyrus,*"  the 
worship  was  restored  in  Jerusalem,  according  to  the  statement  of 
the  Chronicler.  So  the  real  duration  of  the  interval  was  49  years. 
Bertholet,  in  his  commentary  on  Ezra  1:1  [Esra.  uud  Nehemia, 
1902),  says:  "Seine  70  Jahre  wiirden  uns  freilich  ins  Jahr  608 
als  Anfang  der  Exilsperiode  ftihren;  aber  man  darf  hier  nicht 
nach  strenger  Chronologic  fragen."  But  this  is  gliding  over  the 
difficulty  much  too  easily.  We  ought  not,  indeed,  to  demand  from 
the  Chronicler  and  the  Jewish  tradition  our  chronology;  but  we 
have  the  right  to  expect  here  a  real  computation,  and  certainly 
something  more  "streng"  than  the  equation  19=^70!  Now  the 
dens  ex  machina  here,  as  in  the  other  cases  of  difficulty  with  the 
Jewish  chronology  of  the  Persian  kings,  is  "Darius  the  Mede." 
I  have  already  shown  (above,  p.  38)  that  the  accepted  Jewish 
tradition  in  the  second  and  third  centuries  b.  c. — represented  also 
by  the  Chronicler — made  Darius  Hystaspis  precede  Cyrus. 
Since  this  king  came  to  the  throne  "when  about  sixty-two  years 

•  8  See  my  demonstration  of  the  fact  above,  pp.  28,  61,  and  in  the  text  and  transla- 
tion here. 


136  Ezra  Studies 

of  age"  (Dan.  6:1)/'^  the  duration  of  his  reign  cannot  have  been 
given  as  much  more  than  twenty  years.  Supposing  it  to  have 
been  twenty-one  years,  we  should  have  the  desired  number, 
seventij,  for  the  "Sabbath-interval."  It  is  quite  possible  that  a 
computation  in  sevens  may  then  have  been  made  in  this  way, 
after  the  favorite  manner: 

Duration  of  the  Babylonian  power  after  ^    ^wr^oo  —  ^n 

the  destruction  of  the  temple    .     .     .     .  \ 
Rule  of ''the  Medes"  (Darius  Hystaspis)      3x7    =21  years 
Total  interval  of  "  exile  " 10  X  7    =70  years 

But  however  this  may  be,  the  fact  that  the  Chronicler's  chro- 
nology introduced  Darius  Hystaspis  at  just  this  point  is  hardly  to 
be  questioned.  For  the  history  as  he  writes  it,  the  reign  of  this 
king  is  as  indispensable  before  Cyrus  as  it  is  impossible  after 

him. 

NOTE  B(onEzr.  1:8) 

The  Name  Sheshbazzar. — The  question  of  the  original  form  of 
this  name  has  been  discussed  at  great  length  in  recent  years,  but 
never  with  any  satisfactory  mustering  of  the  evidence.  MT  has 
uniformly  ^IIldJTT ,  and  this  was  undoubtedly  the  reading  of  the 
"standard"  text  of  the  second  century  a.  d.,  and  the  one  which 
was  transliterated  by  Theodotion.  The  name  is  found  in  vss.  8 
and  11  of  this  chapter,  and  in  5:14,  16.  The  Egyptian  Greek  of 
the  canonical  Ezra  (Theodotion)  seems  to  attest  the  form 
'2a(ra^a<T{(T)ap  in  all  of  these  places.^^  The  L  text  has  everywhere 
(thanks  to  editorial  revision)  'La^a(TdpT}<i,  which  evidently  origi- 
nated in  2a  \_aa  j  ^aadpr]<;.  Theodotion,  then,  certainly  transliterated 
1a(Ta/3acr[a)ap.  The  Vulgate  (Sassabasar)  follows  MT,  as  was  to 
be  expected. 

The  form  which  stood  in  the  I  Esdras  fragment  differed 
slightly  from  this,  being  '^ava^aaaap,  as  will  presently  appear. 
The  testimony  of  the  MSS,  recensions,  and  versions  is  complicated, 
including  forms  which  originated  in  copyists'  errors,  in  arbitrary 

i''Ia  it  not  likely  that  this  statement  was  first  made  and  adopted  with  the  express  pur- 
pose of  providing  definitely  for  the  70  years?  There  is  nowhere  any  similar  statement 
regarding  a  foreign  monarch,  nor  is  it  easy  to  imagine  any  other  reason  for  making  the 
statement  here. 

2"  Certainly  >iof  the  TVjy^  WV^"^  of  Dan.  9:23,  however. 

21  So  especially  codex  A,  whose  text  is  generally  the  oldest  and  best.  The  Hexaplar 
reading  seems  to  have  been  Sai/a^ao-o-ap  (by  contamination  from  I  Esdras),  judging  from  N 
5:14  and  16,  and  from  B  in  1:8.  The  readings  of  B  are  worth  quoting  merely  as  characteristic 
of  the  extremely  corrupt  state  of  its  text.  In  vs.  8  it  has  'S.a^ava<Tap;  in  vs.  11  the  name  is 
omitted  through  carelessness;  in  5:14  the  reading  is  Bayao-ap,  and  in  5:16  'S.ap^ayap\ 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  137 

revision,  and  in  confusion  with  the  name  Slidlmanassar.  The 
four  passages  in  I  Esdr.  are  2:  11,  11;  G:  17,  19.  Cod.  A  and  its 
fellows  everywhere  attest  the  reading  Sai^a/Saacrapo?,  and  this  was 
certainly  the  original  reading  of  the  "Egyptian"  text.  The  MS 
followed  by  Origen  in  his  Hexapla  was  corrupt  here,  as  generally 
elsewhere  in  these  books:  the  Syr.-Hex.  gives  in  2:11,  14 
•  MMv^v^  and  in  6:17,  19  i>^^w  ;  the  Ethiopic  has  in  2:12 
Sdmnds,  in  2:15  Samndsor,  in  6:18  Sanbdssdi'o,  and  in  6:20 
Sanhdsvds.  Cod.  B  (as  usual,  the  least  valuable  of  all  the  wit- 
nesses) offers  l^avafMaaa-dpo)  in  2:11,  '^afxavaaadpov  in  2:14, 
^a^avaaadpcp  in  6 :  17,  and  l.ava^da-a-apo^  in  6 :  19.  That  is,  the 
reading  of  Origen's  "LXX"  column  was  lafiavaaaap-  in  2:11 
and  14,  and  l.ava^aaa-ap-  in  6:  17  and  19. 

The  L  Greek  presents  a  different  form  of  the  name,  which  at 
first  sight  makes  the  impression  of  being  the  original  reading  of 
the  Syro-Palestinian  text,  the  form  1aaa^aXdacrapo<i.  That  this 
was  not  the  primitive  tradition  of  this  family  of  MSS,  however,  is 
made  certain  by  several  facts.  The  old  Latin  version,  which  is 
a  rendering  of  the  Syro-Palestinian  Greek,  attests  no  such  form. 
The  cod.  Colbertinus  (Sabatier,  Bibliorum  sacrorum  Latinae 
versiones  antiquae,  Vol.' Ill)  has  in  2:11  Sabassaro;  in  6:18 
Salabassar;  and  in  6:20  Sabassus  (sic).  The  Lucca  codex 
[Ijagarde,  Sejjtuaginta-Studien  11,  14)  has  in  2:11  Salmanassaro 
—  apparently  by  contamination  from  a  corrupt  form  of  the  Greek; 
and  this  form  is  the  one  w^hich  has  been  adopted  throughout  by 
the  Vulgate.  What  is  far  more  important,  however,  and  indeed 
quite  decisive,  is  the  witness  of  Josephus,  who  by  good  fortune 
has  preserved  three  of  the  passages  in  which  the  name  occurs. 
In  the  first  of  these,  Antt.  xi,  1,  3,  corresponding  to  I  Esdr.  2:11, 
he  has  'A^aaadpo),  obviously  derived  from  I  Esdr.  irapehoOrjaav 
[2ai/]a/3acrcra/3a);  in  xi,  4,  4  he  has  la^daapov,  haplography  from 
^a[va^^dcrapov;  and  in  xi,  4,  6  he  gives  [1)ava^aaadpov.  That 
is,  the  Greek  text  which  he  used — namely,  a  text  of  the  old  trans- 
lation from  which  "I  Esdras"  was  derived — gave  the  name  as 
1ava/3a(Taap;  and  from  the  coincidence  with  the  Egyptian  text  of 
I  Esdr.  we  know  that  this  was  the  reading  of  the  fragment.  It 
follows  with  certainty,  that  the  form  'laaa^aXaaaap,  found  in  the 
L  text  of  I  Esdr.,  is  a  fruit  of  the  late  Lucianic  revision.  The 
reading  may  be  either  a  learned  improvement,  or  (far  more  likely) 
the  result  of  scribal  errors.     However  excellently  it  may  suit  our 


138  Ezra  Studies 

theories  of  the   etymology   of  the  name,  it  cannot  possibly  be 
regarded  as  an  old  reading. 

We  are  left,  then,  with  the  two  forms,  Sesbassar  (Hebrew 
tradition)  and  Sanabassar  (old  Greek  translation).  As  for  the 
latter,  we  do  not  know  that  it  represented  a  different  Hebrew 
reading;  on  the  contrary,  l^ava/Saa-aap  is  probably  an  ancient 
corruption  of  laaa/Saa-aap,  the  accidental  writing  of  v  for  cr  being 
a  blunder  of  which  there  are  many  examples.  "i;i21IJ"JJ  is  not 
easily  explained  as  the  result  of  textual  corruption,  and  is  capable 
of  interpretation  as  a  Semitic  name ;  we  may  therefore  accept  it 
without  hesitation  as  the  original  form.  It  is  presumably  a  Jewish 
adaptation  of  Sawas-abal-usur,"  as  not  a  few  scholars  have  seen. 
The  contraction  in  the  latter  part  of  the  name  is  not  greater  than 
in  the  similar  case  of  ^JlJ^irbn  ,  Belsassar,  for  Bel-sar-iisur,  to  say 
nothing  of  extra-biblical  instances.  With  the  Chronicler's  ^lli^]  oj  , 
I  Chron.  3: 18,  the  name   "ll2Ti2J"i2J  has  of  course  nothing  to  do. 

NOTE  C  (onEzr.  l:9flF.). 
The  number  of  the  temple-vessels. — The  difficulties  of  this  list 
are  well  known.  It  was  altered  by  accident  at  an  early  date,  and 
numerous  attempts  (represented  by  versions  and  single  manu- 
scripts) were  made  to  restore  it.  The  testimony  of  the  various 
witnesses  is  as  follows: 

MT  and  the  corresponding  versions  23  I  Esdras 

(Theodotion,  Jerome)  ^ —    '  *^ -'-^~_-—       --^ 

Egyptian  Syrian 

Golden  basins 30  1,000  L  30;  om.  Lat. 

Silver  basins 1,000  1,000  001.2* 

Snufifers 29  29  29 

Golden  bowls 30  30  30 

Silver  bowls 410  2,410  2,310  (Lat.  2,400) 

Other  utensils 1,000  1,000  1,0C0 

Total  5,400  5,469  om.  (Lat.  5,8G0) 

From  this  table  it  is  evident  that  the  most  of  the  numbers  are 
well  attested.  There  are  three  in  the  case  of  which  it  is  possible 
to  think  of  emending  MT,  namely,  those  of  the  golden  basins,  the 

pSmvcig  for  SamaS,  as  in  not  a  few  transcribed  Babylonian  name.".  Thus,  for  example, 
TClTtJ  (in  Aramaic  characters)  in  the  name  Ki  Sama§,  Stevenson,  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
Contracts,  No.  ;i7;  see  also  the  examples  given  in  the  Business  Documents  of  Murashfl  Sons, 
ed.  Hilprecht  and  Clay,  1898,  pp.  8  and  9. 

21  All  the  texts  agree  with  MT,  except  that  in  the  case  of  the  silver  bowls,  instead  of  the 
numbpr  410  Cod.  B  has  6,  while  A  omits  it.  In  the  case  of  Bone  might  think  of  a  possible  con- 
fusion of  Roman  numerals  with  the  Greek :  YI  =  410,  and  VI  =  6. 

^*  Lat.  has  24(X),  evidently  borrowed  from  the  number  of  the  silver  hotels,  just  below. 


The  First  Chapter  of  Ezra  139 

silver  bowls,  and  (of  course)  the  total.  As  for  this  last  item,  it 
is  beyond  question  that  the  sum  gained  by  adding  the  numbers 
already  given  is  what  the  author  intended  and  originally  wrote. 
Any  emended  or  restored  text  must  of  necessity  either  leave  this 
"total"  blank,  or  else  make  it  actually  equal  to  the  sum  of  the 
numbers  which  are  written. 

Regarding  the  number  of  the  silver  bowls,  it  is  plain  that  the 
original  number  was  2,410.  The  ''two  thousand"  is  attested  not 
only  by  I  Esdr.,  but  also  by  the  Q-]'::  ['2]  of  MT,  and  by  the  size 
of  the  total  in  all  the  texts.  The  original  reading,  instead  of 
DTdJ/J  "CD — which  is  mere   nonsense  here  —  was  D['^5bs]    TCID 

Q^D'd  (just  as  in  Arabic,  jj^\  ^Loj  UJ| ,  "2,000  dinars,"  Wright, 

Gvammar,  II,  236  B;  cf.  also  Judg.  16:28,  Am.  3:12,  Gesenius- 
Kautzsch  §  88/)  and  the  bracketed  letters  were  accidentally  lost, 
by  haplography,  in  the  MS  from  which  our  MT  was  derived. 

The  number  of  golden  basins  is  given  by  MT  as  30,  by  I  Esdr. 
as  1,000  (the  "thirty"  of  L  was  borrowed  from  the  canonical 
Greek,  as  has  been  done  in  a  multitude  of  similar  cases).  The 
amount  of  the  total — in  both  recensions — turns  the  scale  deci- 
sively in  favor  of  the  number  1,000.  I  Esdras,  then,  has  preserved 
the  original  numbers  throughout,  both  in  the  separate  items  and 
in  the  sum  total.  When  the  text  underlying  MT  was  accidentally 
corrupted,  the  "total"  was  altered  to  a  round  number,  5, -400.  The 
number  "thirty"  for  the  golden  basins,  in  vs.  9  of  our  Hebrew, 
was  derived  by  an  error  from  that  of  the  golden  bowls,  in  vs.  10 ; 
the  eye  of  the  copyist  wandering  from  the  word  JT's  to  the  ^HT 
D'^'Jjb'^r  in  the  next  line  below. 


VI 
THE  ARAMAIC  PORTIONS  OF  EZRA 

I.     THE   CHARACTER   OF   THE    "OFFICIAL   DOCUMENTS"    IN   EZRA 

Imbedded  in  the  book  of  Ezra  are  what  purport  to  be  copies 
of  a  number  of  royal  and  other  official  communications  relating 
to  the  Jews,  dating  from  the  Persian  period.  These  are:  (1) 
The  decree  of  Cyrus;  or  more  exactly,  that  part  of  the  decree 
which  announces  the  purpose  of  Yahwfe,  and  encourages  the  Jews 
to  return  from  Babylonia  to  Jerusalem;  Ezr.  1:2-4.  (2)  The 
letter  of  Rehum  and  Shimshai  to  Artaxerxes  Longimanus,  urging 
him  to  stop  the  building  of  Jerusalem;  4:8-16.  (3)  The  reply 
of  the  king,  commanding  that  building  operations  be  stopped; 
4:17-22.  (4)  A  letter  from  Palestinian  officials  to  Darius 
Nothus,^  complaining  that  the  Jews  are  rebuilding  their  temple, 
and  at  the  same  time  giving  the  king  a  concise  history  (quoted 
verbatim  from  the  Jews  themselves)  of  that  most  interesting 
building;  5:7-17.  (5)  The  decree  of  Cyrus^  in  regard  to  the 
building  of  the  temple  in  Jerusalem  and  the  restoring  of  the 
vessels  of  gold  and  silver;  6:3-5.  (6)  A  part  (the  beginning  is 
missing)  of  the  letter  of  Darius  in  reply  to  the  Palestinian  offi- 
cials; 6:6-12.  (7)  A  letter  of  Artaxerxes  Mnemon^  to  Ezra, 
officially  establishing  the  Mosaic  law  and  ritual  in  Jerusalem  and 
Judea,  recognizing  the  temple  in  Jerusalem  as  the  one  legitimate 
seat  of  the  worship  of  the  God  of  Israel,  and  appointing  Ezra  as 
the  religious  head  of  Palestine  with  full  powers;  7:12-26. 

This  is  certainly  a  very  remarkable  collection  of  documents, 

'This  means  to  say  only,  that  according  to  the  narrative  which  contains 
these  letters  the  king  by  whose  order  the  temple  was  completed  was  Darius  II.  See 
above,  pp.  38  f.,  135  f.  I  have  never  doubted  that  the  "Darius"  of  Haggai  and  Zecba- 
riah  was  really  Darius  I. 

2 It  is  quite  possible  that  the  document  is  not  complete  in  its  present  form.  There  is 
obviously  a  gap  between  verses  5  and  6,  for  the  leap  which  is  here  made  from  the  decree  of 
Cyrus  into  the  middle  (!)  of  a  letter  of  Darius  cannot  possibly  have  been  made  in  the 
original  narrative.    See  further  below. 

3  See  the  note  above.  The  Aramaic  papyrus  fragments  recently  discovered  in  Egypt 
make  it  extremely  probable  (though  not  absolutely  certain;  see  below)  that  the  "Arta- 
xerxes" mentioned  in  the  book  of  Nehemiah  is  Artaxerxes  Longimanus;  but  according 
to  the  clear  and  consistent  statements  of  our  narrative  the  king  who 
appears  in  Ezr.  7  ft',  and  Neh.  is  Artaxerxes  II. 

140 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  141 

especially  remarkable  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  we  are  other- 
wise almost  entirely  destitute  of  Jewish  historical  traditions  from 
the  Persian  period.  Aside  from  the  prophecies  of  Haggai  and 
Zechariah,  which  are  merely  brief  religious  compositions,  and 
the  story  of  Nehemiah  (which  was  hardly  preserved  as  an  otficial 
document,  but  rather  as  a  popular  narrative),  we  have  scarcely 
even  the  semblance  of  historical  standing  ground.*  We  might 
expect  that  at  least  a  list  of  the  governors — Persian  or  Jewish  — 
who  were  stationed  in  Jerusalem  would  have  been  handed  down ; 
but  we  have  only  the  names  Sheshbazzar,  Zerubbabel,  and  Ne- 
hemiah. The  succession  of  the  high  priests  is  given  us  only  by 
the  Chronicler,  probably  derived  from  oral  tradition;^  Neh. 
12:10f.,  22.  As  for  the  Jewish  tradition  with  regard  to  the 
Persian  Kings,  it  is  a  very  significant  fact  that  it  places 
Darius  Hystaspis  (under  the  name  "Darius  the  Mede")  just 
before  Cyrus,  instead  of  after  him.  The  comparison  of  Dan. 
5:30;  6:1,  29;  9:1;  10:1;  11:1,  with  the  succession  of  kings  in 
Ezra:  Cyrus,  Xerxes,  Artaxerxes,  Darius,  Artaxerxes,  and  again 
with  the  computation  of  the  "seventy  years"  of  the  captivity 
(48  years,  remainder  of  Neo-Babylonian  rule;  +21  years,  reign 
of  Darius  as  Babylonian  monarch;  +1  year  of  Cyrus)*^ 
proves  this  in  conclusive  manner,  as  I  have  already  shown.'  It 
seems  quite  certain,  in  view  of  all  this,  that  no  extensive  written 
traditions  of  the  Persian  period  were  preserved  in  Jerusalem. 
The  latter  half  of  the  period,  in  particular,  was  a  time  full  of 
events  of  great  interest  and  importance  for  the  history  of  the 
province  of  Judea  and  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem ;  but  no  Jewish 
record  of  them  has  survived.      Even  such  a  momentous  thing  ^S 

*  The  Clironicler's  stories  of  Ezra  aixi  Nuheiniah,  as  I  have  already  shown,  have  no 
more  historical  value  than  his  stories  of  David  and  the  ark.  I  shall  return  to  this  subject 
later. 

i^The  Chronicler's  allusion  to  a  "book  of  the  Chronicles  "  in  Neh.  12: 23  is  no  more  to  be 
taken  seriously  than  are  his  allusions  to  tlie  sixteen  other  books  of  his  imaginary  library 
(see  the  list  in  Driver's  Introduction).  There  is  not  the  least  internal  evidence  that  ho  had 
a  written  source  before  him  in  compiling  these  lists,  while  they  all  bear,  both  in  matter 
and  in  form,  the  unmistakable  stamp  of  his  handiwork.    I  shall  return  to  this  subject  later. 

6  See  above,  pp.  38  f .,  1^5  f . 

'In  all  probability,  the  Jewish  tradition  was  not  far  wrong  in  its  estimate  of  the 
length  of  the  reign  of  this  Darius.  When  he  took  the  throne  of  Babylonia  he  was  "about 
pixty-two  years  of  age"  (Dan.  6:1),  and  the  theory  of  c<iurso  supposed  a  previous  reign  over 
Media.  In  reality,  the  reign  of  Darius  Hystaspis  lasted  3(5  years;  which  wouhl  agree  ex- 
cellently with  the  Jewish  estimate.  Further  evidence  that  this  "Mede"  was  none  other 
than  Darius  Hystaspis  is  furnished  by  Dan.  (5:2  f.,  where  this  king  is  said  to  have  reorganized 
the  government  of  the  empire,  dividing  it  into  satrapies,  and  providing  for  the  royal  super- 
vision of  these.  Here  is  certainly  a  surviving  tradition  of  the  great  reforms  of  Darius  I, 
who  did,  indeed,  accomplish  this  very  work,  soon  after  his  accession  to  the  throne. 


14:2  Ezra  Studies 

the  Samaritan  schism  is  without  mention  in  old  Hebrew  literature, 
excepting  the  (necessarily  veiled)  allusion  by  the  Chronicler  in 
Neh.  13:28  f.^  The  question  of  the  trustworthiness  of  these 
documents  in  the  book  of  Ezra  is  therefore  one  of  very  great 
importance. 

1.  The  Prevailing  View 
Most  writers  on  the  Old  Testament,  in  modern  times,  have 
regarded  the  Aramaic  documents  in  Ezra — i.  e.,  all  of  those  men- 
tioned above,  with  the  exception  of  the  edict  of  Cyrus  in  chap.  1  — 
as  genuine,  or  at  least,  as  genuine  in  their  original  form. 
A  few  scholars,  to  be  sure,  expressed  themselves  decidedly  against 
the  authenticity  of  one  or  more  of  these  writings,  two  or  three 
decades  ago;  thus  Graetz,  Gesch.  der  Juden,  II,  1875,  pp.  87,  100, 
128,  declared  them  all  forgeries;  and  Noldeke,  Gott.  gel.  Anzeigen, 
1884,  1014,  rendered  a  similar  verdict  in  the  case  of  the  letter  in 
Ezr.  7:12-26.  In  the  years  which  followed  it  became  customary, 
among  the  more  "advanced"  Old  Testament  scholars,  to  speak  of 
these  letters  and  decrees  as  more  or  less  altered  from  their  primi- 
tive wording,  and  therefore  not  fully  trustworthy.  Thus,  the  first 
editions  of  Cornill's  Einleitung  treat  the  Aramaic  documents  in  Ezr., 
chaps.  4-6  as  authentic,  but  say  that  7:12-26  is  "liberarbeitet." 
Similarly  Bleek-Wellhausen^  Bertheau-Ryssel,  Comm.,  1887, 
Kuenen,  and  others.  Stade,  Geschichte,  thought  that  the  letters 
might  possibly  have  been  composed  by  the  author  of  the  narrative 
in  which  they  are  imbedded,  though  he  believed  the  information 
which  they  contain  to  be  in  the  main  trustworthy.  In  general,  it 
has  been  a  well-nigh  universal  custom  to  treat  "the  Aramaic 
source"  or  "the  Aramaic  history"  as  an  important  historical  com- 
position, even  among  those  who  look  with  suspicion  on  the  docu- 
ments which  it  contains.  Thus  Driver,  Introdncfion :  "[The 
Aramaic  source]  appears  to  have  been  a  thoroughly  trustworthy 
document,  though  the  edicts  contained  in  it,  so  far  as  their  form 
is  concerned,  are  open  to  the  suspicion  of  having  been  coloured 
by  their  transmission  through  Jewish  hands."  In  a  word:  'The 
documents  are  not  genuine,  but  in  substance  are  thoroughly  trust- 
worthy!'"    Van  Hoonacker,  1892,  maintained  the  authenticity  of 

8  Composition  of  Ezr. -Neh.,  p.  48. 

9 The  objections  to  this  position  are  both  obvious  and  decisive.  In  tlie  first  place,  the 
"Aramaic  source"  contains  nothing  but  these  suspicious  documents,  and  we  have  no  right 
at  all  (in  the  absence  of  proof)  to  assumo  that  it  ever  did  contain  more.  And  in  the  second 
place,  when  documents  lie  before  us  which  in  form  do  not  appear  to  be  authentic,  wliose 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  143 

all  these  "records;"  and  so,  doubtless,  did  the  majority  of  his 
contemporaries  who  had  studied  the  matter. 

Kosters,  in  his  Hcrstcl,  1893,  while  finding  genuine  portions 
in  the  Aramaic  documents,  rejected  the  most  as  a  worthless  fabri- 
cation.'" Wellhausen,  Biickkchr  der  Judcn,  1895,  declared  all 
the  Aramaic  -'Urkunden"  worthless — but  continued,  and  still 
continues,  to  use  them  for  his  Historij.  In  my  own  investigations, 
which  were  completed  before  I  had  seen  the  work  of  either  Kosters 
or  Wellhausen,  I  reached  the  conclusion  that  these  Aramaic  por- 
tions of  Ezra  are  compositions  exactly  on  a  par  with  Dan.,  chaps.  1-6 
and  the  book  of  Esther ;  and  also,  that  the  Artaxerxes  letter  in  Ezra, 
chap.  7,  is  the  work  of  the  Chronicler  alone.  See  my  Composifion, 
1896.  Professor  H.  P.  Smith  adopted  nearly  all  my  conclusions, 
incorporating  them  in  his  Old  Testament  History,  1903.  In  one 
point,  however,  his  view  differs  widely  from  my  own.  In  common 
with  nearly  all  those  who  have  discussed  the  book  of  Ezra  in 
recent  times,  he  assumes  that  the  letters  in  4:7-23  are  out  of 
X>lace  in  their  present  connection,  and  belong  rather  to  a  time 
shortly  before  the  work  of  Nehemiah  (pp.  347  f.).  This  matter 
will  be  considered  below.  Smith  seems  to  suggest,  moreover,  that 
our  present  book  of  Ezra  could  be  improved  not  only  by  the 
excision  of  4:7-24,  but  also  by  cutting  out  the  whole  group  of 
documents  (in  chaps.  5  and  6)  which  purport  to  come  from  the 
time  of  Darius;  a  proceeding  which  would  have  the  effect  of 
reducing  the  whole  '-Aramaic  Source"  to  three  verses  of  nar- 
rative (5 : 1,  2 ;  6 :  15)  jjZns  the  two  letters  (chap.  4)  which  according 
to  his  view  are  quite  isolated,  since  he  believes  that  a  context  for 
them  can  only  be  conjectured."  This  certainly  hacks  the  Gordian 
knot  into  bits. 

The  view  prevailing  among  the  most  advanced  scholars,  then, 
for  some  time  past,  has  been  that  these  Aramaic  documents  are 
very  valuable,  though  many  have  believed  them  to  have  been  more 
or    less    altered    from    their   original    form    by    Jewish    editors. 

statements  we  cannot  control  from  any  other  source,  and  of  whoso  author  or  authors 
we  know  nothing,  beyond  the  fact  that  they  obviously  write  with  a  "tendency,"  we 
cannot  legitimately  make  use  of  them. 

I" Kosters'  methods,  however,  were  not  thoroughly  scientific,  and  his  conclusions,  in  the 
main,  were  of  little  value. 

II  He  remarks  (p.  Sil):  "It  is  clear  that  if  the  whole  account  were  stricken  out  we 
should  have  a  perfectly  good  connection,  5:2  boing  continued  directly  by  6:15."  But  by  this 
reasoning  we  could  eliminate  nearly  every  formal  document  that  was  ever  incorporated  in 
a  history.  Of  course,  when  the  main  nanativo  is  resumed  the  connection  is  resumed  1  It  is 
this  same  illogical  argument  that  Wellhausen  uses  in  regard  to  I  Mace,  chaps.  8  and  15,  in 
order  to  get  rid  of  the  ei)isodes  and  documents  wliich  he  finds  inconvenient. 


144  Ezra  Studies 

Recently,  however,  the  view  has  gained  wide  acceptance,  especially 
in  Germany,  that  we  have  here  true  copies  of  the  original  records 
themselves,  the  i2:>sissima  verba  of  Persian  "Urknnden  und  Akten- 
stiicke,"  Thus  Cornill,  Einleitung\  1905,  after  designating  the 
writings  by  the  words  just  quoted,  says  that  their  "Echtheit"  is 
"iiber  jeden  Zweifel  erhoben;"  and  similarly,  that  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  Artaxerxes  letter  to  Ezra,  in  7 :  12-26,  is  now  "  abschliess- 
end  bewiesen."  Siegfried,  Kommentar,  declares  the  authenticity 
of  these  Aramaic  transcripts  to  be  "unwiderleglich  nachgewiesen" 
(p.  7).  So  also  Bertholet,  Commentar;  Guthe,  Polychrome  Bible; 
Budde,  Gesch.  der  aUhebr.  Lifteratnr,  190(3,  pp.  231  if.,  and 
many  others. 

This  increased  confidence  in  the  "genuineness"  of  the  Ezra 
documents  is  due  chiefly  to  E.  Meyer's  Eiifstehung  des  Jiideii- 
thums  (1896),  in  which,  after  setting  forth  quite  fully — -but  super- 
ficially, as  will  appear — the  arguments  pro  and  con,  the  author 
reaches  the  conclusion  that  all  the  letters  and  edicts  in  the  book, 
excepting  only  the  Decree  of  Cyrus  in  chap.  1,'"  are  authentic. 
Meyer's  own  opinion  as  to  the  fruit  of  his  argument  is  expressed 
on  p.  70:  "Damit  ware,  denke  ich,  nicht  nur  die  Aechtheit  der  im 
Buche  Ezra  iiberlieferten  aramaischen  Dokumente  gegen  alle  Ein- 
wande  erwiesen,  sondern  mehrfach  audi  ein  klarer   Einblick  in 

12  Why  he  should  except  this  as  he  does  (Entstehung,  p.  49)  is  not  at  all  clear.  Every 
single  phrase  in  it  is  cut  out  of  the  very  same  cloth  as  is  the  phraseology  of  the  documents 
which  follow.  It  does  not  contain  a  sentence  or  an  idea  which  is  not  exactly  paralleled  in 
chaps.  6  and  7,  saving  only  that  at  the  beginning  Cyrus  compliments  the  God  of  the  Jews  by 
identifying  him  with  the  chief  of  his  own  gods.  But  this  last-mentioned  fact  would  be  only 
a  matter  of  course  to  Professor  Meyer,  as  may  be  seen  from  his  own  words  (p.  64)  :  "Seitwir 
wisseu,  wie  Kambyses  und  Darius  in  den  agyptischen  laschriften  als  treue  Diener  der  ein- 
heimischen  GOtter  auftreten,  wie  Kyros  in  seiner  Proklamation  an  die  Babylonier  sich  als 
den  eifrigsten  Verehrer  und  den  erklarteu  Liebling  des  Marduk  einfiihrt,  durfte  uiemaud 
daran  Anstoss  nehmen,  wenn  sich  ein  PerserkOnig  den  Juden  gegeniiber  in  gleicher  VVeise 
ausserte."  Nor  is  this  all.  Meyer  explains  the  out  and  out  priestly-Jewish  language  of  the 
Artaxerxes  edict  in  chap.  7  by  the  very  "simple"  theory  that  Ezra  and  his  companions  druw 
up  the  document,  while  the  Persian  ministers  only  gave  it  official  form  (p.  65).  Why,  then, 
may  it  not  be  that  Sheshbazzar,  or  the  high  priest  Jeshua,  drew  up  the  Cyrus  edict?  The 
reason  for  denying  the  authenticity  cannot  lie  in  the  manner  in  which  the  document  is  pre- 
sented hero,  for  the  claim  of  its  verbal  genuineness  is  precisely  as  clear  as  in  the  case  of  the 
^rmau  of  Ezra ;  the  proclamation  is  distinctly  said  to  have  been  "t7i  writing,  as  follows'' 
(1:2).  Nor  can  Meyer  fairly  withhold  credence  from  the  Cyrus  edict  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
presented  to  us  by  the  Chronicler;  so  is  the  Artaxerxes  decree  (every  word  of  7:1-11  com- 
posed by  the  Chronicler,  as  Meyer  himself  agrees),  and  so  also  are  the  letters  in  chap.  4.  It 
cannot  be  said  that  1 : 2-4  is  in  any  way  incongruous  with  6 : 3-5 ;  on  the  contrary,  if  we  should 
suppose  that  1 :4  was  originally  followed  immediately  by  6:  3a^  ("As  for  the  house  of  God  in 
Jerusalem,"  etc.)  so  that  the  text  of  the  complete  edict  included  1 :  2-4  ;-6:3ap-5,  the  whole 
document  would  bo  perfectly  harmonious  and  homogeneous.  Why  should  not  Meyer  as.sume 
that  the  Chronicler  translated  the  first  sentences  of  the  decree,  from  Aramaic  into  Hebrew, 
and  trausferred  them  to  their  present  place  in  chap.  1,  the  place  where  they  are  really  most 
effective'!  There  is  no  difficulty  whatever  in  the  way  —  e  x  c  e  p  t  i  n  g  the  same  difficul- 
ties which  stand  in  the  way  of  all  the  other  documents. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  145 

die  Bedeutung  dieser  ftir  die  jtldische  wie  fur  die  persische 
Gescliichte  uuschatzbaren  Urkiuiden  gewoiineii."  To  this  claim 
the  most  of  those  Old  Testament  scholars  who  have  written  on  the 
book  of  Ezra  during  the  past  decade  have  seemed  to  give  assent. 
But  I  do  not  believe  that  any  thorough  and  unbiased  student 
of  the  Old  Testament  who  subjects  Meyer's  argument  to  a  really 
critical  examination,  taking  into  account  the  important  factors 
which  he  has  left  out  of  account,  will  be  able  to  accept  his 
conclusions. 

2.   A  Literary  Habit  of  Ancient  Narrators 

Some  of  the  principles  and  general  truths  uttered  by  Meyer 
at  the  outset  are  of  very  doubtful  value.  At  the  foot  of  p.  2,  in 
the  Introduction,  he  says,  alluding  to  a  remark  of  Stade's  to  the 
effect  that  the  Jewish  wa-iter  might  himself  have  composed  the 
letters  and  decrees  which  he  incorporated:  "Die  'bekannten  Ge- 
wohnheiten  alter  Schriftsteller,'  welche  dafur  sprechen  sollen,  dass 
diese  Urkunden  Erfindungen  des  Schriftstellers  seien,  sind  mir 
ganzlich  unbekannt.  Die  Alten  haben  den  Wortlaut  wichtiger 
Urkunden  in  ihre  Texte  genau  ebenso  aufgenommen  wie  die  neu- 
eren  Historiker."  If  this  last  sentence  means  to  say,  that  some 
ancient  narrators  introduced  some  genuine  documents  into  their 
narratives,  it  is  superfluous  information ;  if  it  means  that  the  for- 
mal documents  included  in  ancient  Jewish  narratives  and  his- 
tories are  usually  genuine,  it  is  not  true.  And  it  is  true  —  as  will 
presently  appear — that  some  of  the  best  early  (including  Jewish) 
historians  of  whom  we  have  knowledge  invented  "official  docu- 
ments," with  purely  literary  purpose,  in  a  way  that  would 
not  be  tolerated  in  a  serious  historical  work  of  the  present  day. 
The  substitution  of  "Historiker"  for  "Schriftsteller"  looks  a  little 
like  begging  the  question,  moreover,  since  not  every  writer  of 
stories — even  stories  which  contain  correct  and  perhaps  valuable 
historical  data — deserves  the  title  "historian."  We  should  hardly 
give  this  name,  for  instance,  to  the  authors  of  Daniel,  Esther,  and 
III  Maccabees.  One  of  the  things  which  we  especially  wish  to  find 
out  is,  whether  the  writer  of  these  few  pages  of  Aramaic  embody- 
ing the  records  in  question  is  entitled  to  it. 

As  for  the  claim  that  the  verbal  quotation  of  the  documents  is 
presumptive  proof  of  their  genuineness:  the  real  fact  is,  that  the 
direct  citation  of  speeches,  letters,  and  decrees,  as  a  mere  literary 


146  Ezra  Studies 

device,  in  order  to  make  the  account  more  interesting  and  effective 
by  increasing  its  verisimilitude,  plays  as  important  a  part  in  the 
narrative  literature  of  the  Hebrews  as  in  that  of  other  peoples. 
To  illustrate:  In  II  Kings  5:6  and  10:2  f.  two  brief  letters  are 
quoted,  with  the  purpose  of  enlivening  the  narrative.  The  one  is 
a  letter  from  the  king  of  Syria  to  the  prophet  Elisha,  and  the 
other  a  circular  missive  sent  by  Jehu  to  the  magnates  of  Jezreel 
and  Samaria.  They  are  mere  scraps;  but  the  purpose  of  present- 
ing them  as  verbal  citations,  and  not  as  quotations  in  sub- 
stance only,  is  made  evident  by  the  formal  nnyi  (the  equivalent 
of  the  Aramaic  iTlDS'D^)  "To  proceed,"  used  to  introduce  the  letter 
proper,  after  the  preliminaries.  In  II  Chron.  2:2-15  we  have  the 
transcript  of  two  letters,  the  correspondence  of  the  kings  Hiram 
and  Solomon,  with  which  the  Chronicler  has  enriched  the  story  of 
the  building  of  the  temple.  No  one  well  acquainted  with  the  Old 
Testament  would  think  of  asking  how  it  happens  that  these  docu- 
ments, lost  to  sight  for  many  centuries,  should  turn  up  at  last  in 
the  hands  of  the  Chronicler. 

The  "documents"  thus  far  mentioned  are  not  given  in  full 
official  dress,  with  the  introductory  formula  of  address  arid  greet- 
ing, obviously  because  they  are  too  short  to  make  this  desirable. 
In  the  book  of  Esther — at  least  in  its  massoretic  form — the  sev- 
eral royal  letters  and  edicts  are  given  only  in  brief  abstract,  though 
the  writer  plainly  means  to  give  the  impression  that  he  could  pre- 
sent them  in  cjctenso  if  he  wished.  And  in  the  Greek  form  of  the 
book  they  are  indeed  given  verbatim  and  in  full,  with  date,  super- 
scription, and  all,  in  the  same  way  as  in  the  book  of  Ezra,  In 
Daniel,  again,  we  find  the  same  literary-traditional  use  of  "official 
records"  in  order  to  give  dramatic  life  to  the  narrative.  The 
technical  framework  of  the  documents  is  given  now  partially,  now 
entirely.  Thus,  in  6:26  ff.  we  have  the  text  of  a  decree  of  Darius. 
It  does  not  begin  with  the  king's  name,  because  that  had  just  been 
written,  and  the  repetition  would  have  been  awkward ;  but  its  dress 
is  otherwise  quite  formal:  "To  all  the  Peoples,  Nations,  and 
Languages,  that  dwell  in  all  the  earth;  your  peace  be  multiplied. 
I  make  a  decree,  etc."  And  in  3:31 — 4:34  is  given,  with  all  cir- 
cumstance and  in  what  purports  to  be  the  exact  form,"  a  long 

13  Save  that  in  4 :16,  25-.30  the  narrator  carelessly  lapses  into  the  use  of  the  third  person 
instead  of  the  first,  in  speaking  of  the  king;  precisely  as  the  Chronicler,  in  composing  the 
"  personal  memoirs  "  of  Ezra,  every  now  and  then  falls  out  of  tlie  impersonation,  writing 
about  his  hero  instead  of  letting  him  speak. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  147 

proclamation  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  with  both  introduction  and  for- 
mal conclusion.  Other  exam[)les  of  the  same  kind  are  the  two 
letters  of  Ptolemy  Philopator  "preserved"  in  III  Maccabees;  the 
first  (3:12-29)  commanding  the  punishment  of  the  Jews,  and  the 
second  (7:1-9)  proclaiming  the  king  their  friend  and  protector. 
Both  of  these  are  in  the  regular  epistolary  form,  like  the  letters 
in  Ezra. 

More  instructive  still,  if  possible,  is  the  employment  —  i.  e.,  the 
free  composition — of  these  pseudo-official  sources  by  two  of  the 
best-known  Jewish  historians.  Josephus,  in  his  Antiquities, 
illustrates  his  story  of  the  Jews  by  the  addition  of  a  good  many 
official  documents,  a  considerable  proportion  of  which  were  evi- 
dently composed  by  him  for  the  purpose.  Characteristic  specimens 
are  to  be  found  in  this  very  portion  of  the  history  dealing  with  the 
Persian  period,  where,  in  addition  to  the  documents  contained  in 
the  book  of  Ezra"  he  presents  us  with  a  letter  from  Cyrus  to  the 
governors  in  Palestine  (xi,  1,  3)  as  well  as  a  letter  from  Darius 
to  the  Samaritans  (xi,  4,  9).'^  In  both  cases  it  is  evident  that 
what  Josephus  aims  to  contribute  is  not  information,  but  pomp 
and  circumstance.  He  did  not  compose  the  letters  for  the  sake  of 
any  new  material  which  they  contain  (the  Cyrus  letter,  for 
instance,  is  made  up  almost  entirely  of  things  which  stand  else- 
where in  the  book),  but  simply  for  the  glory  which  they 
give  the  Jews,  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  and  in  triumph  over 
their  adversaries  the  Samaritans.  And  in  the  subsequent  chapters 
of  his  history  he  proceeds  in  the  same  way,  introducing  here  and 
there  high-sounding  documents  which  are  quoted  verbatim,  and 
the  value  of  which,  to  us,  is  very  small  indeed. 

In  I  Maccabees,  that  most  admirable  of  all  Jewish  narratives, 
we  have  the  same  thing  once  more.  Its  author  is  a  man  of  the 
best  stamp,  and  with  the  instincts  of  a  true  historian,  though 
writing  from  a  point  of  view  which  is  emphatically  that  of  his 
own  day  and  his  own  people.  He  is  well  informed,  but  modest 
and  reserved,  and  withal  a  man  of  few  words;  not  at  all  the  one 
to  make  a  display  of  learning,  or  wilfully  to  mislead  his  readers. 
Scattered  through  his  history  are  copies  of  official  letters,  treaties 

i*In  the  interpolated  form  which  I  have  already  described  at  some  leugtli.  See 
especially  pp.  31  ff. 

15  If  anyone  wishes  to  suppose,  witli  Holscher,  (JueUen  des  Josephus,  43  ff..  that  these 
"  apocryphal"  additions,  and  numerous  others  of  the  same  sort  in  the  subsequent  chapters 
of  the  history,  were  made  not  by  Josephus  himself,  but  by  one  of  his  source?,  whoso  aim,  aa 
he  says,  was  to  "  glorify  Judaism,"  the  argument  is  of  course  not  affected  by  the  supposition. 


14:8  Ezra  Studies 

and  proclamations;  formally  faultless,  as  a  rule,  but  often  betray- 
ing, in  one  way  or  another,  the  fact  that  they  are  not  "genuine."'^ 
They  are  doubtless  in  the  main  trustworihjj  in  the  sense  that  they 
give  a  correct  impression  of  the  progress  of  events,  inasmuch 
as  they  embody  the  honest  and  sober  recollection  of 
one  who  was  exceptionally  well  informed,  and  who  wrote 
soon  after  the  events,  of  which  at  least  the  greater  part  had  taken 
place  during  his  own  life-time.  But  whoever  looks  here  for  a 
habit  of  incorporating  official  records  similar  to  the  habit  of  mod- 
ern historians  will  look  in  vain. 

Again,  the  fondness  of  these  early  writers  for  the  dramatic 
form  of  presentation  must  not  be  overlooked  in  this  connection. 
With  this  end  in  view  they  frequently  quote  verbatim  the  speeches, 
prayers,  or  other  utterances  of  their  chief  characters.  Judas 
Maccabaeus  makes  a  succession  of  fiery  speeches  to  his  soldiers, 
I  Mace.  3:18-22,  58-60;  4:8-11,  etc.  Are  they  "genuine"? 
So  Josephus  very  often  improves  the  Old  Testament  narrative  by 
making  similar  insertions.  Thus,  in  telling  the  story  of  Nehemiah 
[Antf.,  xi,  5,  7)  he  gives  us  the  wording  of  an  address  of  some 
length  made  by  that  hero  in  the  temple.  Greek  historians  had 
the  same  habit,  as  every  one  knows.  Thucydides,  for  instance,  in 
iv,  85-87  (to  take  the  example  which  lies  nearest  at  hand)  quotes 
in  full  a  very  interesting  speech  made  by  the  Spartan  general 
Brasidas  to  the  men  of  Acanthus.  The  oration  is  full  of  weighty 
matters,  and  it  had  an  immediate  and  important  effect,  as  we  are 
expressly  told,  for  it  induced  the  Acanthians  to  revolt  from  Athens 
(just  as  the  letter  of  Rehum  and  Shimshai  in  Ezra  4  had  the 
immediate  and  important  efPect  of  stopping  the  building  of  the 
temple  in  Jerusalem).  Fortunately,  Thucydides  himself  has  told 
us  what  to  expect  from  such  "quotations"  as  this  one.  His  words 
are  worth  repeating  here  because  of  their  bearing  on  the  present 

16  So  scholars  have  long  recognized  and  repeatedly  shown,  in  the  case  of  one  or  another 
of  these  documents;  for  example,  the  letter  of  Demetrius  Soter,  10:25-45;  the  proclamation 
in  honor  of  Simon,  14:27-47;  and  the  Roman  edict,  15:16-21.  Probably  not  a  single  one  of 
all  the  writings  thus  incorporated  in  the  history  represents  in  its  wording,  nor  even  exactly 
in  its  substance,  any  actual  document.  For  the  statements  made,  and  the  opinions  expressed 
here,  I  may  refer  to  my  article  "I  Maccabees"  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  III,  2857-69. 
A  renewed  study  of  the  book,  since  that  article  was  written,  has  confirmed  mo  in  the  conclu- 
sions there  stated  and  supported.  Certainly  the  most,  and  perhaps  all,  of  these  incorporated 
writings  were  freely  composed  by  the  author  of  the  history,  as  the  best  means  of  narrating 
what  he  wished  to  narrate  and  of  making  the  impression  which  he  wished  to  make.  He  had 
before  him  no  written  narrative  source  or  sources.  There  is  no  valid  reason  whatever  for 
supposing  interpolation,  anywhere  in  the  book.  The  last  three  chapters  (or  more  exactly, 
14:16  — 16:24),  now  quite  generally  regarded  as  secondary,  certa  inly  formed  a  part  of 
the  original  work. 


The  Aramaic  Portion:^  of  Ezra  149 

inquiry;  i,  22  (Jowett's  translation) :  "/  Jutrc  j)iit  iido  flic  iikjiiIIi 
of  each  speaJxer  tlw  soitiniotfs  proper  to  the  occasion,  expressed 
((s  I  thought  lie  would  he  likel/j  to  ejrj)ress  fhetii;  while  at  tlie  same 
time  I  endeavored,  as  near]//  as  I  could,  to  (/ire  the  (jeneral  pur- 
port of  wliat  u'as  actnalli)  said.'"^'  That  is,  lie  gives  us  in  each 
case,  not  words  which  were  uttered,  but  words  which,  judging 
from  all  known  facts,  ought  to  have  been  uttered.  This,  I  take  it, 
is  not  the  method  of  a  modern  historian,  but  more  nearly  that  of 
the  writer  of  a  thoroughgoing  historical  novel.  As  for  drawing  a 
line  of  distinction,  as  regards  this  free  use,  between  the  spoken 
oration,  which  presumably  ivas  not  preserved  in  writing,  and  the 
official  document,  which  presumably  tvas  preserved  somewhere,  we 
may  be  sure  that  no  one  of  these  ancient  writers  did  anything  of 
the  kind.  Not  even  Thucydides  (to  say  nothing  of  the  Jewish 
narrators!)  could  ever  have  supposed  that  it  was  any  less  permis- 
sible to  compose  the  utterances  of  a  Brasidas  in  the  form  of  a 
letter,  beginning:  "Brasidas  to  the  men  of  Acanthus,  greeting," 
etc.  (supposing  that  a  letter  was  known,  or  believed,  to  have  been 
written),  than  to  give  the  same  things  in  the  form  of  a  speech, 
with  the  orator's  introduction:  "Men  of  Acanthus!"  when  that 
was  believed  to  have  been  the  form  of  the  communication.  To 
illustrate:  in  i,  137  Thucydides  presents  us  with  what  purports  to 
be  a  true  copy  of  a  letter  from  Themistocles  to  Artaxerxes  I 
Longimanus.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  certainly  invented  by 
the  historian,  according  to  the  principles  above  stated  by  him  in 
regard  to  the  speeches,  as  few  modern  scholars  would  doubt. '^ 

1' These  words,  I  believe,  describe  exactly  tbe  proceeding  of  the  author  of  I  Maccabees 
in  composing  the  documents  which  are  scattered  through  his  history.  If  original  documents 
were  ready  to  hand,  he  was  glad  to  use  them  ;  if  they  were  not,  he  invented  them,  like  Thucy- 
dides, to  the  best  of  his  ability  and  in  perfect  good  faith. 

I  have  recently  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  my  estimate  of  the  account  of  the  Jewish 
embassy  to  Rome,  told  in  I  Mace,  chap.  H,  strikingly  confirmed.  In  my  article  in  the  Encycl. 
BibL.  mentioned  above,  I  argued  that  the  narrative  of  thesendingof  the  embassy,  and  of  its 
favorable  reception,  is  accurate,  and  was  plainly  written  by  a  contemporary  who  was  well 
informed;  but  that  tbe  treaty  there  quoted  (vss.  23-32)  was  invented  by  the  author  of  the 
book  in  accordance  with  the  custom  which  his  contemporary  readers,  at  all  events,  under- 
stood (loc.  cit.,  col.  2866).  Wellhausen,  Israelitische  nnd  jUdische  Geschichte^.  268,  contends 
that  I  Mace.  8  is  an  interpolation,  though  he  gives  no  good  reason  for  this  view,  beyond  tlie 
fact  that  the  quoted  document  cannot  bo  "genuine,"'  and  that  the  narrative  is  therefore  to 
be  suspected.  Now,  however,  Xiese  has  shown  (Ndkleke-Festschri/t,  II,  817-29)  that  Jos., 
Antt.,  xiv,  233  has  preserved  a  genuine  Roman  document  of  the  year  161  160  B.  c,  dealing 
with  this  embassy  and  containing  mention  of  tlie  reply  made  to  the  Jews  by  the  Roman 
Senate.  The  substantial  accuracy  of  the  narrative  in  chap.  8  is  thus  proved  once  for  all :  as 
for  the  treaty.  Niese  recognizes,  as  I  had,  that  it  is  merely  "  ein  freies,  schriftstellerisches 
Produkt."  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  case  of  I  Mace.  1.5:1.5-24  is  exactly  similar,  as  I  also 
argued  at  length  (col.  2865).  Here,  again,  Wellhausen,  op.  cit.,  p.  276,  supposes  an  interpo- 
lation. 

i8"Der  Brief  Thuc.  1, 137  kann  nicht  als  echte  Urkunde  angesehen  werden ; "  NOldeke, 
Aufs&tze  zur  persischen  Geschichte,  p.  50,  note. 


150  Ezra  Studies 

But  to  speak  of  this,  and  of  the  documents  in  Josephus,  and 
Daniel,  and  I  Maccabees,  and  the  rest,  as  "forgeries"  would  be  a 
ridiculous  misuse  of  terms.'''  On  the  other  hand,  no  such  free- 
dom as  this  could  be  tolerated  at  the  present  day,  in  a  serious 
historical  work. 

To  sum  up:  The  Hebrew  and  Jewish  narrators  and  historians, 
of  all  ages,  were  accustomed  to  give  life  to  their  narratives  by 
inventing  and  inserting  speeches,  prayers,  letters,  royal  decrees, 
treaties,  and  the  like,  occasionally  summarized,  but  more  often 
given  "verbally"  and  in  full,  including  even  the  stereotyped  frame- 
work; just  as  is  done  by  modern  writers  of  historical  novels.  Out 
of  the  considerable  number  of  such  formal  documents  which  have 
reached  us  in  early  Jewish  literature  ( leaving  now  out  of  account 
the  documents  in  Ezra)  very  few  can  be  called  genuine, 
at  best,^"  and  these  few  belong  to  a  time  long  after  the  close  of 
the  Persian  period.  In  the  case  of  the  most  of  them  it  seems 
highly  probable  that  the  author  and  his  readers  thought  of  them 
merely  as  a  mode  of  literary  embellishment.  They  are  not,  and 
were  not  intended,  to  be  taken  seriously.  This  certainly  gives  us 
a  clear  presumption  with  which  to  approach  the  Ezra  documents, 
though  not  exactly  the  presumption  which  Professor  Meyer 
demands. 

But  Meyer's  failure  to  take  account  of  this  literary  habit  is  by 
no  means  the  chief  objection  which  is  to  be  raised  against  his 
treatment  of  the  Ezra  documents,  as  I  shall  endeavor  to  show. 

3.  The  Tendency  of  the  Documents 
In  a  footnote  on  p.  43  of  his  Entsfehung  Meyer  says:  "Davon 
will  ich  gar  nicht  weiter  reden,  dass  absolut  nicht  einzusehen  ist,  zu 
welchem  Zwecke  sich  jemand  die  Mtihe  gegeben  haben  sollte,  diese 
und  ebenso  die  anderen  Urkunden  von  cap.  4-6  zu  fabriciren." 
This  confession  of  inability  to  see  any  motive  for  composing  these 
documents  is  a  fatal  one,  for  it  shows  either  that  Meyer  has  not 
the  thoroughgoing  acquaintance  with  Jewish  literature  which  is 

19 See  my  Composition  of  Ezra-Nehemiah,  p.  29,  above;  and  my  article  "I  Maccabees" 
in  the  Encyl.  Bihl.,  §§8  (end),  ^d,  10.  It  would  bo  interesting  and  profitable  to  carry  still 
farther  the  discussion  of  this  whole  matter  of  the  literary  embellishment  of  serious 
narrative  by  ancient  writers.  It  is  a  subject  which,  so  far  as  Hebrew-Jewish  literature  is  con- 
cerned, has  been  almost  totally  neglected. 

20  Josephus  incorporates  some  genuine  documents  in  his  history,  in  the  portion  dealing 
with  the  close  of  the  Greek  rule  and  the  beginning  of  the  Roman  period.  He  simply  copies 
them  from  his  Greek  sources,  and  sometimes  inserts  them  in  ludicrously  unsuitable  places; 
see  Niese  in  the  NOldeke-Festschrift,  II,  828,  and  HOlscher,  Quellen  des  Josephus,  p.  22. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  151 

absolutely  necessary  to  any  one  who  undertakes  such  an  investi- 
gation as  this,  or  else,  that  he  is  shutting  his  eyes  to  what  lies  in 
plain  sight.  In  the  first  place,  we  are  not  limited  to  imaginary 
cases,  for  we  have  in  the  pre-Christian  Jewish  writings  plenty  of 
"fabricated"  documents  of  just  this  nature,  to  which  we  can  turn 
for  instruction.  Why  did  the  Chronicler — or  his  source — insert 
the  Hiram-Solomon  letters  (verbally  quoted)  in  his  account  of  the 
building  of  the  temple  ?  Why  do  we  find  in  Josephus'  history  of  the 
Persian  period  the  formal  letters  from  Cyrus  to  the  Syrian  govern- 
ors and  from  Darius  to  the  Samaritans,  to  say  nothing  of  the  many 
others  of  the  same  character  ?  And  again,  why  should  the  author  of 
the  Daniel  stories  "have  given  himself  the  trouble"  to  compose  the 
royal  edicts  which  he  incorporates,  especially  the  very  long  decree 
of  Nebuchadnezzar?  Can  any  one  imagine  a  reason  why  the  long 
and  elaborate  "Letter  of  Aristeas"  should  have  been  composed 
with  such  painstaking  by  an  Egyptian  Jew,  in  the  third  century 
B.C.?  At  all  events,  it  was  thus  fabricated,  and  probably  at 
very  near  the  time  when  these  Ezra  documents  were  composed. 
And  then  we  have  the  dozens  of  royal  letters  and  decrees,  freely 
invented,  in  the  three  books  of  Maccabees,  in  Esther,  and  still 
elsewhere.  Even  if  the  motives  were  "absolut  nicht  einzusehen," 
the  fact  would  remain  that  these  more  or  less  elaborate  formal 
instruments  were  created  by  the  wholesale,  by  Jewish  narrators, 
from  at  least  the  third  century  b.  c.  onward. 

It  is  plain,  further,  that  Meyer  greatly  underestimates  the 
power  of  imagination  possessed  by  the  early  Jewish  writers,  and 
the  extent  to  which  this  power  was  used  in  their  writings.  On 
p.  47,  for  example,  in  speaking  of  the  statement  in  Ezr.  6:1,  2  that 
the  memorandum  supposed  to  be  in  Babylon^'  was  found  at  Ecba- 
tana,  he  says  that  this  is  "was  kein  Mensch  erfunden  haben  wtirde." 
But  this  is  putting  an  astonishingly  low  estimate  on  the  capacity 
of  an  Israelite  story-teller.  Such  bits  of  real  life  as  this  are  just 
the  business  of  any  one  who  wishes  to  give  his  narrative  touches  of 
verisimilitude.  Moreover,  in  this  particular  instance  even  a  very 
stupid  narrator  might  well  have  been  equal  to  the  invention,  for 
it  was  obviously  incumbent  on  him  to  show  why  this  docu- 
ment had  been  lost  to  sight:  the  fact  is  (so  the  narrator 
implies),  no  one  would  have  thought  of  looking  for  such  a  record 

■^'As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  word  532  here  does  not  meau  "Babylou,"  but 
"Babylouia." 


152  EzEA  Studies 

anywhere  else  than  in  Babylonia;  but  really  it  was  in  Ecbatana  all 
the  time ;  hence  Xerxes,  Artaxerxes,  and  Darius  had  known  nothing 
about  it.  And  so  it  is  with  the  other  elements  of  the  narrative,  or 
features  of  the  documents,  which  Meyer  singles  out  as  marks  of 
genuineness;  they  are  all  such,  and  only  such,  as  any  writer  with 
a  particle  of  imagination  would  be  sure  to  produce. 

Again,  Meyer  points  repeatedly  to  the  plausible  elements  in 
these  records,  as  though  giving  conclusive  proof  of  their  genuine- 
ness; a  "forger"  would  not  have  made  them  thus.  So  on  p.  43, 
for  instance,  speaking  of  the  letter  of  Tattenai  in  chap.  5,  he  says 
that  if  all  this  is  forged,  the  forgery  is  "ausserstgeschickt  gernacht." 
But  does  not  this  also  reveal  a  surprisingly  low  opinion  of  the 
literary  ability  of  that  day?  The  authorship  of  these  documents 
might  be  called  "skilful"  if  they  were  drawn  up  and  worded  in 
such  a  way  that  they  would  not  appear  to  be  Jewish  com- 
positions. But  any  student  of  the  Old  Testament  can  see  that 
they  all  sound  distinctly — often,  indeed,  quite  unmistakably  — 
like  Jewish  compositions.  Even  Meyer  sees  it.  He  is  obliged  to 
admit  a  "Jewish  redaction"  of  the  official  writings  in  chap.  6 
(see  below) .  He  is  even  forced  to  assume,  in  the  case  of  7: 12-26, 
that  Ezra  composed  this  royal  edict,  while  the  Persians  merely 
signed  it!  Whatever  else  may  be  said  of  the  narrator  whose 
"Persian  official  documents"  necessitate  such  a  telltale  hypothesis 
as  this,  he  certainly  cannot  be  called  "ausserst  geschickt." 

As  for  the  skill  displayed  (it  may  be  remarked  here  in  passing), 
we  might  reasonably  have  expected  that  the  composer,  or  com- 
posers, of  these  documents  would  try  to  imitate  the  Aramaic  of 
the  fifth  century  b.  c.  That  which  is  actually  employed  belongs 
to  a  period  two  or  three  centuries  later,  as  will  be  shown  presently. 
It  may  be,  however,  that  specimens  of  the  older  language  were 
not  within  reach. 

But  to  return  to  the  tendency  of  the  documents.  Meyer's 
remark,  quoted  above,  that  he  cannot  imagine  a  motive  for 
the  invention  of  these  records,  is  by  no  means  an  empty  phrase. 
It  is  plain,  on  page  after  page,  that  he  is  indeed  able  to  overlook 
the  many  plain  indications  which  any  thorough  student  of  Hebrew- 
Jewish  history  and  literature  finds  staring  him  in  the  face;  I 
mean  those  students  who  recognize  the  fact  that  the  Chronicler 
did  not  write  unvarnished  history,  and  that  the  narrative  of  Daniel 
is  fancifully  didactic  rather  than  literally  accurate.      It  is  quite 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  153 

evident,  as  one  reads  on,  that  this  whole  laborious  investio-a- 
tion  of  the  "Entstehung"  would  not  have  been  written  if  its 
author  had  been  more  intimately  acquainted  with  the  people 
about  which  he  is  writing."  It  is  not  only  easy  to  see  the 
"Tendenz"  which  produced  these  documents;  it  is  impossible  not 
to  see  it,  for  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  literature  which  is  most 
nearly  related.  On  p.  51  Meyer  concedes  that  6:12a  cannot  be 
the  genuine  utterance  of  a  Persian  king,  and  accordingly  decides 
that  a  "judischer  Eiferer"  inserted  it  in  the  original  document. 
But  may  not  such  an  "Eiferer"  have  written  more  than  single 
verses?  The  Chronicler  composed  the  Cyrus  edict  in  chap.  1,  and 
doubtless  with  a  motive.  May  not  a  similar  motive  have  led  some 
one  of  his  fellows  to  compose  other  edicts? 

During  the  Greek  period,  the  Jewish  religion  found  itself  on 
trial  for  its  life.  The  children  of  Israel  now  saw,  as  never  before, 
how  small  and  despised  a  [)art  of  humanity  they  were.  Greek 
thought  and  culture,  especially,  had  made  great  inroads.  The 
Dispersion,  which  had  assumed  great  proportions  even  in  the 
Persian  period,^^  now  threatened  to  put  a  speedy  end  to  the  national 
existence.  To  crown  all,  the  glory  of  Jerusalem,  so  long  the  center 
and  heart  of  the  Jewish  religion,  began  to  be  dimmed.  There 
was  a  temple  (as  we  now  know)  in  Egypt;  another,  more  recently 
established,  on  Mount  Gerizim;  and  very  likely  still  others  in 
Babylonia  and  elsewhere.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  zealous  Jews 
of  Jerusalem  did  what  they  could  to  stem  the  tide,  and  to  establish 
beyond  all  question  the  supremacy  of  the  mother  church.  It  was 
this  impulse,  primarily,  which  produced  the  whole  '"history"  which 
the  Chronicler  wrote,  and  which  gave  the  motive  for  composing 
these  Persian  documents  and  many  others  of  the  same  kind.  They 
are  an  eminently  characteristic  product  of  the  Greek  period. 

I  can  think  of  no  better  way  of  setting  forth  the  "tendency" 
of  these  documents  than  to  quote  one  or  two  recent  characteriza- 
tions of  similar  writings  belonging  to  this  same  period.  Schiirer, 
Geschichfe^,  III,  468,  speaking  of  the  Letter  of  Aristeas,  says: 

22  Professor  Meyer  takes  his  predecessors  to  task  (pp.  4  f.,  70  f.)  for  their  too  exclusive 
attention  to  Palestine  and  the  Old  Testament,  to  the  net'lect  of  Persian  history  especially. 
It  is  true  that  the  tendency  to  take  the  narrow  view  is  stronR;  and  Old  Testament  scholars 
may  well  feel  grateful  to  Meyer  for  the  many  new  points  of  view  which  he  has  given,  as  well 
as  for  his  visjorous  and  clear  presentation  of  his  side  of  tlie  argument.  But  the  prime  requi- 
site, after  all,  is  knowledge  of  the  .Jews. 

23 So  I  wrote  in  one  of  my  lectures  on  the  Second  Isaiah,  delivered  at  Harvard  University 
in  1905.  Meyer,  p.  67:  "Eine  jttdischn  Diaspora  gab  es  damals  noch  nicht."  The  matter  is  of 
course  of  the  most  vital  importance  to  any  thcury  of  tin-  "restoration." 


154  Ezra  Studies 

"Diese  Iiilialtsubersiclit  zeigt,  dass  der  Zweck  der  Erzahlung 
keineswegs  die  erzahlte  Geschichte  an  sich  ist,  sondeni 
diese  Greschichte,  insofern  sie  lehrt,  welche  Hochach- 
tung  und  Bewunderung  ftir  das  jtidische  Gesetz  und 
das  Judenthum  iiberhaupt  selbst  heidnisclie  Autori- 
taten  wie  der  Konig  Ptolemaus  und  sein  Gesandter 
Aristeas  hegten.  Denn  gerade  darin  gipfelt  die  Tendenz  des 
Ganzen,  dass  hier  dem  jtidischen  Gesetze  aus  heidnischem 
Munde  ein  Lob  zubereitet  wird."  Here  is  a  motive,  and  a  very 
easily  comprehensible  one,  which  could  have  produced  just  such 
official  utterances  as  those  which  we  find  in  the  book  of  Ezra. 
Very  similar  are  the  terms  in  which  Holscher,  Quellen  des  Josephus, 
p.  44,  describes  a  considerable  group  of  "official"  documents  and 
allied  narratives  dealing  with  the  Persian  and  Greek  periods, 
which  he  believes  Josephus  to  have  derived  from  Alexander  Poly- 
histor:  "All  diesen  Geschichten  gemeinsam  ist  ...  .  die  ausge- 
sprochene  Tendenz,  das  Judentum  zu  verherrlichen:  es  soil 
illustriert  werden,  wie  die  Konige  der  Weltreiche  dem  Judentum 
huldigen,  wie  sie  fiir  Tempel  und  Kultur  Sorge  tragen,  wie  sie  in 
Jerusalem  anbeten,  wie  sie  offiziell  dort  ftir  sich  beten  lassen.  Sie 
betragen  sich  als  musterhafte  Proselyten;  sie  beschenken  den 
Tempel,  sie  gewahren  den  Juden  Privilegien  und  Steuererlasse. 
Gerade  dies  letztere  kehrt  immer  wieder;  darum  auch  all  die 
Edikte,  die  fiir  diese  Quelle  charakteristisch  sind.  Das  andere, 
was  die  Legenden  mit  Vorliebe  behandeln,  ist  das  Verhaltnis  von 
Juden  und  ISamaritanern.  Die  Juden  erscheinen  dabei  stets  als 
Muster  der  Frommigkeit  und  Treue,  die  Samaritaner  aber  als 
heuchlerisch  und  boshaft;  die  letzteren  ziehen  denn  auch  stets, 
wie  die  Quelle  zeigt,  den  ktirzeren." 

No  better  characterization  of  the  Aramaic  documents  in  Ezra 
is  needed  than  these  two  quotations  furnish.  Almost  every  single 
one  of  the  features  here  enumerated  is  to  be  found  in  the  Old 
Testament  book;  and  what  is  more,  there  is  no  material  in  any 
of  the  Ezra  documents  which  does  not  directly  serve  one 
or  more  of  the  purposes  here  named.  The  exaltation  of 
the  Jews  and  their  religion  by  foreign  kings  and  magnates;  the 
ii-iiniipJt  orcr  flic  SdDuiritdiisj  the  oH-verpeated  and  emphasized 
proof  that  Jerusalem  is  the  one  legitimate  seat  of  the  cultus; 
the  claim  of  especial  perquisites  and  privileges  for  the  clergy  in 
particular;  these  all  are  not  present  incidentally  in  the  docu- 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  155 

ments,  they  are  all  that  the  documents  contain.  To  go  into  detail 
here  would  involve  writing  out  pretty  much  the  whole  of  their 
contents.  The  strong  Jewish  coloring  is  everywhere  (even  in 
the  unnecessary  laudation  of  the  Jews  by  their  enemies,  4:20; 
5:11 1),  and  permeates  the  whole  fabric;  the  worn-out  subterfuge 
of  an  "Ueberarbeitung"  will  not  avail  here. 

But  the  Jewish  character  of  these  documents  is  not  the  only 
count  in  the  indictment.  Against  their  genuineness  is  also  to  be 
put  down,  that  they  show  no  sign  of  intimate  acquaintance  with 
the  history  of  the  Persian  period.  The  Jewish  apologist,  writing 
in  the  Greek  period,  found  himself  confronted  with  two  prin- 
cipal questions  which  he  must  needs  answer,  and  answer  con- 
clusively. They  were  the  following:  (1)  How  did  it  happen  that 
(as  known  from  Haggai  and  Zechariah)  the  temple  at  Jerusalem 
was  not  suitably  built  and  completed  until  the  time  of  Darius? 
and  (2)  If  Jerusalem  and  Judea  were  completely  depopulated  by 
the  Chaldeans  (as  is  asserted  in  II  Kings  24:14:;  25:26(!),  etc.), 
what  manner  of  men  were  the  Jews  of  the  second  temple  ?  Whence 
did  they  come?  Were  they  a  mixed  rabble  from  the  surrounding 
districts?  Might  not  even  the  Samaritans  be  of  better  Jewish 
blood,  after  all,  as  they  claimed  to  be?  We  have  before  us,  in 
the  Chronicler's  history,  an  answer  to  these  two  questions;  an 
answer  which  began  with  Adam  and  was  worked  out  with  minute 
elaboration  down  into  the  latter  part  of  the  Persian  period.  The 
Aramaic  documents  (by  whomsoever  composed)  are  obviously  an 
■  important  part  of  the  same  answer;^*  and  it  is  equally  obvious  that 
every  particle  of  the  material  which  they  contain  could  have  been 
derived  either  directly  or  indirectly  from  Haggai,  Zechariah,  and 
II  Kings  25,  with  the  aid  of  such  information  as  to  Persian  things 
as  could  be  had  in  any  city  of  Syria  or  Palestine  at  any  time  in 
the  Greek  period.''^  If  anyone  asserts  that  these  documents  in 
Ezra  display  more  knowledge  of  the  Persian  court,  or  of  condi- 
tions in  the  Persian  realm,  than  is  displayed  in  the  books  of 
Daniel,  Esther,  and  Tobit,  he  asserts  what  is  not  true. 

-^  See  further  below,  p.  160. 

25 It  is  obvious  why  the  "return"  was  represented  as  taking  place  under  Cyrus,  and 
also,  why  Cyrus  should  have  been  supposed  to  furnish  money  for  the  buildins  of  the  temple. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  the  new  (Persian)  ripime,  under  wliich  the  temple  was  actually 
built  and  completed;  the  natural  turning-point  was  here.  .\nd  as  for  tho  royal  aid,  how 
else  could  these  returning  exiles,  entering  a  desolate  land  and  a  ruined  city,  have  under- 
taken their  task?  Such  reflections  as  these  first  resulted  in  definite  theories  at  about  the 
middle  of  the  third  century  B.  c,  so  far  as  our  sources  enable  us  to  judge.  Com- 
pare what  was  said  ahovr,  p.  1.").'?,  in  regard  to  the  Oreok  period. 


156  Ezra  Studies 

An  important  conclusion  stated  by  Meyer,  p.  74,  deserves  to 
be  especially  emphasized:  " Diese  Thatsache  ....  lehrt,  dass  es 
tiber  das  ganze  erste  Jabrhundert  der  nacliexilischen  Geschichte 
bis  auf  Ezra  und  Nebemia  herab  keinerlei  Naclirichten  und  kein- 
erlei  Tradition  gab  mit  Ausnahme  dessen,  was  in  den  erhaltenen 
Urkunden  Ezra  4-6  und  in  den  gleichzeitigen  Propheten  stand." 
That  is,  aside  from  these  same  more  than  suspicious  "Urkunden," 
there  is  nothing  whatever  to  show  that  any  genuine  tradition  of 
the  early  Persian  period  was  preserved  in  Jerusalem.  Even  this 
support  is  denied  them.^^ 

Once  more.  There  are  numerous  perfectly  plain  bits  of  evi- 
dence showing  that  the  documents,  in  the  form  which  we  have, 
are  not  what  they  profess  to  be.  These  are  (briefly):  (1)  The 
wording.  Aside  from  the  specifically  Jewish  phrases,  and  the 
peculiar  vocabulary  of  the  Chronicler,  the  comparison  of  6 : 5  with 
5:14  (!)  shows  conclusively  that  we  are  dealing,  at  least  at  this 
single  but  crucial  point,  with  made-up  documents.  (2)  The 
language.  As  will  be  shown  below,  the  Aramaic  of  Ezra  is  not 
at  all  that  of  the  fifth  century  b.  c.  (3)  The  names  of  the  kings. 
The  form  of  the  name  "Artaxerxes"  which  is  employed  in  Ezra  is 
not  above  suspicion;  and  the  name  "Nebuchadrezzar"  appears  in 
the  form  (written  with  n)  which  is  characteristic  of  the  Greek 
period.  (4)  The  documents  are  not  dated.  Genuine  docu- 
ments would  have  borne  dates;  and  it  is  unlikely  that  any  copyist 
or  editor  would  ever  have  omitted  such  an  extremely  interesting 
and  important  detail. 

The  final  statement  of  the  case,  then,  is  this.  Here  are  docu- 
ments which  from  their  wording  cannot  possibly  be  regarded  as 
true  copies  of  genuine  originals ;  written  in  a  dialect  which  belongs 
to  a  time  much  later  than  the  one  which  they  profess  to  represent ; 
containing  no  facts  or  materials  not  obtainable  in  the  Greek 
period,  and  unsupported  by  any  tradition  from  the  Persian  period; 
found  in  the  most  untrustworthy  of  all  Hebrew  iiistories;  them- 
selves written  with  a  manifest  tendency;  and  finding  their  only 
close  parallels  in  numerous  writings  of  about  the  same  time  which 

'-'■'  So  far  as  the  "  Urkunde  "  7 :  12-26  is  concerned,  it  is  of  course  customary  to  find  sup- 
port for  it  in  the  "Ezra  memoirs"  which  immediately  follow.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  one 
is  precisely  as  "genuine"  as  the  other.  As  I  have  already  demonstrated,  the  whole  Ezra 
story  was  composed  by  the  Chronicler,  with  no  other  apparent  basis  than  his  own  imagina- 
tion (my  Composition,  pp.  14-29,  57-62).  Meyer  treats  these  Chronicler  tales,  and  some  of  the 
worthless  lists  as  well,  as  trustworthy  material;  with  the  result  that  the  most  of  his  book 
is  simply  built  on  air.  Wellhausen's  Geschichte,  in  the  chapters  dealing  with  this  period,  is 
not  much  better. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  V)1 


are 


acknowledged  to  be  inventions — and  we  are  asked  to  pro- 
nounce them  -genuine,  at  least  in  substance'!  The  theory  of  their 
authenticity,  in  any  sense  whatever,  has  evidently  not  a  leg  to 
stand  on. 

On  p.  43;  in  speaking  of  the  Tattenai  correspondence  in  Ezr., 
chap.  5,  Meyer  says:  "Wer  die  Urkunde  verwirft,  thut  dies  denn 
audi  nicht  aus  inneren  Griinden,  sondern  well  er  den  Tempelbau 
nnter  Kyros  oder  richtiger  den  Befehl  des  Kyros  den  Tempel  wie- 
deraufzubauen  fiir  unhistorisch  hielt,  oder  weil  er  die  Nachricht 
von  der  Rtickkehr  der  Juden  unter  Kyros  verwirft."  But  this 
is  hardly  fair  to  the  scholars  who  have  written  on  the  subject. 
Probably  not  one  of  the  number  cares  a  straw  for  his  most  cher- 
ished theory  in  comparison  with  finding  out  the  truth  as  to  the 
origin  and  character  of  these  records.  We  are  in  the  direst  need 
of  information  as  to  the  history  of  the  Jews  in  the  Persian  period, 
and  every  scrap  of  material  that  promises  help  ought  to  be  treas- 
ured and  put  to  use.  But  no  extremity  of  need  can  outweigh  the 
obligation  to  follow  the  evidence.  So  the  verdict  in  regard  to  the 
Aramaic  part  of  Ezra  must  be,  "that  it  contains,  not  a  series  of 
remarkable  uttei-ances  by  heathen  kings  and  officers  to  the  glory 
of  the  Jews  and  their  religion,  but  a  kind  of  literature  that  abounds 
during  this  period  of  Jewish  history.  So  far  as  historical  value 
is  concerned,  it  stands  in  all  respects  on  the  same  plane  with  Dan. 
2-6  and  the  book  of  Esther."  -' 

II.     THE  chronicler's  PART  IN  THE  ARAMAIC  PORTIONS 

The  letter  of  Artaxerxes  to  Ezra,  7:12-26,  was  created  entire 
by  the  Chronicler,  like  the  context  in  which  it  stands.  The  nar- 
rative which  introduces  it,  7:1-11,'  is  the  work  of  his  hand,  and 
so  also  is  that  which  follows,  7:27  f.;  8:1-36,  as  I  have  shown 
elsewhere  {Composition,  pp.  16  if.,  20  f.).  There  is  no  single 
verse  in  all  the  Chronicler's  history  which  is  more  unmistakably 
his  own  property  than  7:28.  The  letter  itself  is  marked  through- 
out its  whole  extent  by  his  favorite  ideas  and  [)hrases,  and  his 
peculiar  lexical  and  syntactical  usages,  manifest  even  in  their 
Aramaic  dress.  See  the  notes  below,  passim.  It  is  especially 
interesting  to  observe  how  closely  this  letter  parallels  two  of  the 
Chronicler's  documents  which  precede  it;  namely,  the  royal  edict 
in  chap,  1  and  the  royal   letter  to  the   ''eparchs''  of  the  Trans- 

■•'7  Composition,  p.  8. 


158  Ezra  Studies 

flumen,  now  preserved  in  I  Esdras  4:476-56,  but  originally  fol- 
lowing immediately  upon  Ezra  1:1-11,  as  I  have  shown.  Thus, 
1:2  is  reproduced  in  7:14;  1:3  in  7:13  and  the  last  clause  of 
vs.  15  ("who  dwells  in  Jerusalem");  1:4  reappears  in  7:15,  16 
(including  the  "silver  and  gold  and  free-will  offerings,"  offered 
"for  the  house  of  God  which  is  in  Jerusalem").  And  again: 
7:17  had  its  counterpart  in  I  Esdr.  4:52  (and  also  in  Ezr.  6:5, 
nota  bene);  7:18  corresponds  to  4:54  ff.;  vs.  19  brings  back 
again  Ezr.  1:7  ff . ;  vs.  20  corresponds  to  I  Esdr.  4:51,  and  vs.  21 
to  vss.  476,  48.  Vss.  22  f.  are  again  similar  to  I  Esdr.  4:51  f., 
besides  reproducing  very  noticeably  Ezr.  6:9  f.  And  finally, 
vs.  24  is  a  repetition  of  I  Esdr.  4:53-56  (cf.  also  49  f.),  the  per- 
quisites of  the  priests,  Levites,  and  gate-keepers.  That  is,  the 
decrees  of  Cyrus  in  favor  of  Sheshbazzar  and  his  company  are 
here  reproduced  in  substance,  and  even  with  a  striking  repeti- 
tion of  the  wording  of  whole  phrases,  in  the  decree  of 
Artaxerxes  for  Ezra  and  his  followers. 

Another  passage  composed  in  Aramaic  by  the  Chronicler  is 
6:15-18,  directly  continued  in  vss.  19  ff.  by  his  Hebrew  narrative. 
That  vs.  15  belongs  to  him  is  proved  sufficiently  by  the  exact 
date  which  it  contains,  coupled  with  the  fact  that  in  vs.  14  the 
preceding  narrative  comes  to  a  natural  close.  I  was  formerly 
inclined  to  assign  the  last  three  words  of  vs.  14  to  him  also 
{Composition,  p.  10),  but  now  believe  that  it  is  better  to  regard 
them  as  the  work  of  a  mere  glossator.  The  Chronicler  has  written 
out  the  story  of  this  whole  period  of  history  with  some  care,  and 
it  is  hardly  fair  to  him  to  accuse  him,  unnecessarily,  of  this  bit 
of  carelessness.  He  should  at  least  be  given  the  benefit  of  the 
doubt. 

The  work  of  the  Chronicler's  hand  is  to  be  seen,  once  more, 
in  the  two  verses  6:9,  10,  as  I  have  already  shown  with  abundant 
proof  [Composition,  p.  10). 

These  are  the  only  parts  of  the  Aramaic  of  Ezra  which  can 
surely  be  traced  to  the  Chronicler.  The  question  of  course  sug- 
gests itself,  whether  he  may  not  also  have  been  the  author  of 
6:6-14;  the  grounds  of  the  suspicion  being  (1)  the  presence  of 
two  verses  written  by  him  in  the  middle  of  this  section;  and  (2) 
the  strange  transition  from  vs.  5  to  vs.  6,  the  words  of  Cyrus 
being  followed,  without  any  warning,  by  those  of  Darius ;  which 
certainly  resembles  the  heedless  leap  in  chap.  7,  from  vs.  26  to 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  159 

vs.  27,  where  Artaxerxes  is  suddenly  interrupted  by  Ezra.  But 
it  is  far  more  probable  that  there  has  been  an  accidental  omission 
between  verses  5  and  6  in  chap.  6.  Even  the  Chronicler  himself 
would  hardly  have  made  so  intolerably  abrupt  a  transition  as  this. 
Moreover,  there  are  no  manifest  traces  of  his  presence  in  vss.  6-8 
and  11-14,  though  in  a  passage  of  this  length,  in  any  writing  of 
his,  it  is  usually  easy  to  recognize  his  handiwork.  It  is  to  be 
observed,  also,  that  when  vss.  9  f.  are  removed,  the  passage  reads 
smoothly  and  consistently.  The  original  narrator  is  concerned 
only  with  the  building  of  the  temple;  there  is  no  evidence, 
aside  from  these  two  verses,  that  he  also  intended  to  represent 
Cyrus  and  Darius  as  providing  for  the  details  of  the  cultus — to 
say  nothing  of  the  "bullocks,  rams  and  lambs"  and  the  "wheat, 
salt,  wine  and  oil"  which  the  Chronicler  is  so  fond  of  parading 
before  us;  see  I  Chron.  29:21;  II  Chron.  29:21,  22,  32;  Ezr. 
6:17;  7:17,  22;  8:35,  and  cf.  II  Chron.  2:9,  14. 

The  question,  which  has  sometimes  been  raised,  whether  the 
whole  Aramaic  section,  4:8 — 6:14,  may  not  also  have  been 
written  by  the  Chronicler,  I  have  once  more  examined  with  care; 
with  the  result  of  satisfying  myself  completely  that  the  hypothesis 
is  an  untenable  one.  The  manner  of  the  transition  in  4:7  f.  (in 
whatever  way  these  verses  are  treated)  shows  distinctly  that  the 
work  of  another  narrator  begins  here.  The  Chronicler,  compos- 
ing the  narrative  freely,  could  not  possibly  have  proceeded  in 
this  way.  It  is  also  incredible  that  he  could  have  kept  his 
identity  concealed  throughout  this  long  section.  He  could  hardly 
have  brought  himself  to  leave  the  Levites,  singers,  porterSj  and 
Nethinim  completely  out  of  sight  for  nearly  three  whole  chapters; 
and  even  if  that  had  been  possible,  he  could  not  have  abandoned 
to  this  extent  his  own  vocabulary  and  style."** 

I  formerly  thought  that  the  interpolation  4:9  f.  might  be 
attributed  to  the  Chronicler,  and  regarded  him  as  the  probable 
author  of  4:24;  see  my  Composition,  pp.  7-9.  The  former  of 
these  passages  will  be  discussed  below;  the  latter  can  best  be 
considered  here. 

So  far  as  internal  evidence  is  concerned,  there  is  no  reason  for 
regarding   the   Chronicler  as  the  author  of  4:24.     The   phrase 

^SAs  I  have  remarked  elsewhere,  the  Chronicler's  peculiar  liabits  iu  the  use  of  words, 
phrases,  and  coustructions  appear  everywhere,  and  in  quite  uniform  distribution,  through- 
out Chron. -Ezr. -Neb.,  exceptinq  in  (1)  the  parts  copied  verbally  from  Samuel  and  Kings; 
(2)  this  Aramaic  source,  Ezr.  4:8— 6:14;  (3)  Nehemiah,  chaps.  1,  2,  4— 6. 


160  Ezra  Studies 

C^2  "jb'J  is  found  also  written  by  another  hand  in  6:14,  as  I 
have  just  shown,  and  it  probably  was  in  common  use.  The  only 
argument  which  needs  to  be  considered  is  the  one  which  aims  to 
show  that  the  verse  is  an  editorial  patch.  The  argument  rests 
on  two  main  assumptions:  (1)  that  this  Aramaic  narrative  is  a 
contemporary  account,  and  trustworthy  history;  and  (2)  that 
vs.  24,  which  speaks  of  the  building  of  the  temple,  is  out 
of  keeping  with  the  preceding  documents,  which  speak  only  of 
the  building  of  the  city.  But  these  two  assumptions  are  both 
mistaken. 

I  have  already  shown  that  the  order  of  the  Persian  kings, 
Cyrus,  Xerxes,  Artaxerxes  I,  Darius  II,  in  these  chapters,  4  if. — 
and  therefore,  of  course,  the  order  of  the  chapters  themselves — is 
the  only  correct  one,  according  to  the  view  which  prevailed  in 
Jerusalem  in  the  Greek  period.  Both  the  substance  and  the 
progress  of  the  narrative  here  are  precisely  what  we  should 
expect,  when  the  purposes  of  the  narrator  are  taken  into  account. 
As  already  remarked  (above,  p.  155),  the  author  of  these  "official" 
documents  and  the  narrative  containing  them  was  concerned  with 
two  important  matters:  the  delay  in  building  the  temple,  and  the 
relation  of  the  Jews  to  the  Samaritans.  These  enemies  of  the 
Jews  undertook,  on  two  different  occasions,  to  hinder  the  building 
of  the  sanctuary  in  Jerusalem,  by  writing  to  the  Persian  king. 
On  the  first  occasion,  when  they  were  shrewd  enough  to  speak 
only  of  the  city  as  a  whole,^"  without  specifying  the  temple  in 
particular,  they  had  the  good  luck  to  gain  their  point,  and  the 
building  was  stopped.  On  the  second  occasion,  when  other 
officials,  less  cautious,  wrote  only  in  regard  to  the  temple,  the 
attempt  not  only  failed,  but  even  proved  to  be  of  great  assistance 
to  the  Jews,  for  it  resulted  in  the  recovery  of  long-lost  documents 
which  led  the  king  at  once  to  take  the  temple  in  Jerusalem  under 
his  special  patronage.  From  the  literary  point  of  view — and 
we  need  no  other — this  is  all  quite  according  to  rule;  in  fact,  it 
is  exactly  the  way  in  which  any  story  or  play,  ancient  or  modern, 
would  conceive  the  course  of  events  in  order  to  make  it  as  dra- 
matically effective  as  possible.     At  first  the  villain  triumphs,  not 

29  It  is  customary  to  say  that  the  two  letters  in  4:11-22  deal  with  the  building  of  the 
city  ivall.  This  is  not  the  case,  however.  It  is  the  huildincj  up  of  the  city  that  is  described, 
and  that  the  king  orders  to  be  stopped  (vs.  21).  Of  course  the  city  walls  are  also  specified 
by  the  Samaritans;  and  of  course  the  prohibition  of  further  building  included 
the  temple,  at  which  the  Samaritans  were  especially  aiming. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  161 

by  fair  means,  but  through  misrepresentation;  but  in 
the  end  he  is  overwhelmed. 

This  being  the  case,  it  is  obvious  that  such  a  verse  as  24, 
standing  where  it  now  stands,  was  essential  to  the  original  narra- 
tive. The  way  in  which  it  attaches  itself  directly  to  vs.  23  is 
evident,  and  also  the  fact  that  it  is  absolutely  indispensable  as  the 
preparation  for  5:1.^"  The  composer  of  this  Jewish-Samaritan 
drama  could  not  have  devised  a  sentence  which  would  more 
exactly  have  satisfied  his  immediate  purposes.  The  question  of 
its  authorship  can  therefore  not  fairly  be  raised  at  all. 

In  conclusion:  I  believe  that  the  Chronicler  incorporated  this 
Aramaic  writing  in  its  entirety,  and  that  we  have  it  in  substan- 
tially its  original  form.  A  passage  has  been  accidentally  lost 
between  6:5  and  6:6,  as  already  remarked.  The  story  probably 
began  with  some  such  formula  as  [^PS  )Xzb'2  Sriw^riT^S  '"-■'2] 
Dyi:  b^Z  DImH,  and  so  on  as  in  4:8.  The  Chronicler,  when  he 
wrote  his  own  introductory  verse,  4:7  (as  emended  below),  neces- 
sarily omitted  the  words  which  I  have  inclosed  in  brackets. 

There  were  doubtless  many  such  popular  narratives  written, 
after  the  same  manner  in  which  popular  and  edifying  tales  have 
always  been  written.  The  one  which  the  Chronicler  chose  to 
incorporate  was  the  work  of  a  man  of  his  own  school  of  ideas,  who 
in  all  probability  lived  and  wrote  at  about  the  same  time  as  he, 
namely  in  the  middle  of  the  third  century  b.  c.^' 

III.  THE  ARAMAIC  OF  THE  BOOK  OF  EZRA 

On  this  point  it  is  now  possible  to  be  very  brief,  thanks  to  the 
recent  discoveries  of  Aramaic  papyri  in  Egypt.  All  the  Aramaic 
of  Daniel  and  Ezra  belongs  to  the  dialect  of  the  second 
and   third  centuries   b.   c.      This   includes   (1)   the   Aramaic 

3"  It  is  altogether  unlikely  that  the  date,  "ia  the  second  year  of  Darius."  stood  also  in 
5:1  (as  I  once  suggested  as  possible,  Comp.,  p.  12,  note  1).  As  for  I  Esdr.  6: 1,  of  course  the 
date  there  had  to  be  inserted  by  the  redactor  who  interpolated  the  Story  of  the  Three 
Youths  and  transposed  the  Artaxerxes  letters.  The  curious  theory  (now  quite  generally 
adopted)  that  the  passage  5:1,  2  was  not  written  by  the  author  of  5:3  ft'.  needs  no  additional 
refutation.  Of  course  the  one  who  knew  (5:14)  of  the  propliecy  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah 
knew  also  (from  Hag.  1:12,  14,  etc.)  that  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua  were  the  leaders  in  the 
work  of  building.    Chap.  6 : 7  shows  the  same  thing,  plainly  enough. 

31  It  is  fair  to  draw  this  conclusion  from  the  fact  that  this  Aramaic  tale  presupposes 
(not  only  in  4:12, 15  f.,  but  also,  by  implication,  in  5:12ff.)  the  theory  of  a  return  of  "the 
Babylonian  exiles."  Inasmuch  as  every  other  mention  of  such  a  return,  in  the  whole  Old 
Testament  down  to  Tobit  14:5,  comes  from  the  Chronicler  himself  (Composition,  pp.62f.),  it 
is  probable  that  the  theory  originated  in  his  own  generation,  in  the  school  to  which  he 
belonged. 


162  Ezra  Studies 

written  by  the  Chronicler;  (2)  that  of  the  Story  of  the  Samaritan 
Intrigues,  which  he  incorporates;  (3)  the  language  of  Dan., 
chaps.  2-7.^^  The  date  at  which  the  Chronicler  wrote  may  prop- 
erly be  taken  as  the  representative  one  for  the  period  covered  by 
all  these  documents.  The  Aramaic  story  which  he  edits  may  be 
a  trifle  older,  though  it  probably  belongs  to  his  own  generation.^* 
One  chapter,  at  least,  of  the  Aramaic  part  of  Daniel  was  written 
nearly  a  century  later.  From  the  linguistic  point  of  view,  this  is 
all  thoroughly  homogeneous ;  there  is  no  possibility  of  any  scientific 
division  into  "earlier"  and  "later"  sections.  All  these  writings, 
and  all  in  just  the  same  way,  represent  a  certain  stage  in  the 
development  of  Western  Aramaic;  there  is  not  a  single  particular, 
major  or  minor,  in  which  the  one  of  them  can  be  said  with  con- 
fidence to  belong  to  a  more  advanced  stage  of  development  than 
its  fellow.^*  Any  one  of  the  group  might  be  designated  the  earliest, 
or  the  latest,  with  equal  right. 

This  is  by  no  means  a  new  discovery,  so  far  as  the  identity  of 
the  Aramaic  of  Ezra  with  that  of  Daniel  is  concerned.  On  this 
point  the  Semitic  scholars  of  the  present  generation  are  practi- 
cally agreed.  There  has  been  a  strange  failure,  however,  to  draw 
the  correct  conclusion  as  to  the  date  represented  by  this  stage  of 
the  dialect.  We  have  had  for  comparison  a  good  many  Aramaic 
inscriptions  dating  all  the  way  from  the  eighth  century  B.  c.  down- 
ward, including  material  sufficient  to  give  us  a  tolerably  clear  idea 
of  some  of  the  most  characteristic  changes  which  took  place  in  the 

32  la  my  own  opinion,  which  I  have  often  expressed,  the  first  six  chapters  of  Daniel  are 
older  than  the  rest  of  the  book,  which  was  written  in  the  time  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes.  But 
there  is  no  difference  between  the  Aramaic  of  chaps.  2-6  and  that  of  chap.  7. 

33The  Aramaic  Story  of  the  Three  Youths,  as  I  have  already  shown,  belongs  approximately 
to  this  same  period,  but  is  probably  older  than  any  of  these  other  documents,  dating  from 
near  the  beginning  of  the  third  century. 

31  The  fact  that  the  suffix  forms  D3~  and  QH"  (instead  of  ^IS"  and  "jiri")  do  not 
happen  to  be  used  in  Dan.,  as  they  are  frequently  in  Ezr.,  can  hardly  be  made  an  exception 
to  this  statement,  since  the  forms  ending  in  □  continue  to  be  found  in  both  Jewish  and 
gentile  Aramaic  until  long  after  the  time  when  the  book  of  Daniel  was  given  its  final  form 
(e.  g.,  in  the  Jerusalem  Targums,  and  in  Nabatean  inscriptions  dated  in  the  first  century  A.  D.). 
The  Chronicler  uses  both  the  Q  and  the  ]  suffixes,  and  the  one  about  as  often  as  the  other. 

Similarly,  the  preformative  i{  ,  instead  of  Hi  in  the  stems  of  the  verb,  is  represented 
by  several  examples  in  Daniel,  but  does  not  appear  in  Ezra.  But  we  seem  to  have  the  same 
thing  in  the  form  I^'IHTUX  i  Ezr.  4 :  15,  19,  which  is  apparently  a  verbal  noun  from  the  hith- 
pa' al  of  "^"111?;  cf.  T^ntDTQ  in  Dan.  6:15.  Moreover,  the  process  has  already  begun  in  the 
time  of  the  papyri  from  Elephantine;  see  the  hithpe'el  form  "jlirniJX  (1st  pers.  plur.  perf.), 
in  (jowloy's  K,  2.  Notice  also  such  parallel  phenomena  as  the  name  rT^yCJlS?  (for  "in  )  in 
H,  18,  and  the  pronoun  "jlJi?  in  Ezra. 

It  is  very  probable,  indeed,  that  Dan.,  chap.  2-6  was  written  somewhat  later  than  the 
Aramaic  parts  of  Ezra ;  but  it  is  not  safe  to  say  that  this  is  proved  by  the  language. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  163 

language,  from  the  Euphrates  to  Egypt.  The  evidence  has  been 
quite  sufficient  to  show  that  our  "biblical  Aramaic"  could  hardly 
be  dated  so  early  as  the  fourth  century  B.  c,  to  say  nothing  of  a 
still  earlier  date.  Yet  scholars  have  persisted  in  looking  at  the 
Ezra  "documents"  through  the  medium  of  a  theory,  and  have 
found  it  possible  to  hold  the  view  that  the  language  in  which  they 
are  written  belongs  to  the  sixth  and  fifth  centuries,'^  while  dating 
the  Aramaic  of  Daniel  in  the  second  century — as  though  the 
Corpus  Inscripiiomim  Semiticarum  did  not  exist. 

Now,  however,  the  papyri  of  Assuan  and  Elephantine  have 
given  us  abundant  material  confirming  most  decisively  the  witness 
of  the  inscriptions.  The  first  publishers  of  these  texts  have  not 
made  the  matter  plain,  to  be  sure;  in  fact,  what  they  have  written 
would  rather  tend  to  mislead  inquirers  in  regard  to  this  point. 
Sachau,  Drei  aramdische  Papyrusurkunden  aus  Elephantine 
(1907), p.  3,  writes:  "Die  Sprache,  in  der  sie  geschrieben  sind,  ist 
in  alien  wesentlichen  Sttlcken  identisch  mit  derjenigen  der  ara- 
maischen  Kapitel  in  den  Btichern  Esra  und  Daniel,  und  ihre 
Phraseologie  bietet  naheBeruhrungen  mit  derjenigen  der  amtlichen 
Urkunden  im  Esrabuche."  And  Sayce  and  Cowley  had  previously 
written  in  their  ^xxhlicBiion,  Aramaic  Papyri  Discovered  at  Assuan 
(1906) ,  p.  20:  "Much  of  the  interest  of  the  texts  lies  in  the  many 
points  of  contact  which  they  show  with  Palestinian  Aramaic  as 
represented  by  the  books  of  Ezra  and  Daniel.  The  differences 
are  due  no  doubt  partly  to  the  difference  of  locality,  partly  also 
perhaps  to  the  popular  style  of  the  deeds  as  compared  with  the 
literary  style  of  Biblical  Aramaic''^  (the  italics  are  mine).  But 
this  merely  obscures  the  true  state  of  the  case.  Of  course  the 
language  of  all  these  writings,  biblical  and  extra-biblical,  is 
Aramaic  and  (more  or  less)  Jewish.  The  "points  of  contact" 
could  be  taken  for  granted;  the  points  of  difference  are  what 
we  most  need  to  consider. 

One  of  the  most  significant  facts  in  the  history  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  old  West- Aramaic  dialect  is  the  gradual  replacement 
of  certain  sibilants  by  their  corresponding  dentals.  In  our  oldest 
Aramaic    inscriptions,    including    those    (such    as    the    coins    of 

35  Those  who  think  that  those  documents  are  genuine,  and  were  preserved  in  an  archlTe, 
must  of  course  hohi  that  they  arc  written  in  their  original  dialect.  To  suppose  that  they 
have  been  systematically  altered  tliroughout,  in  such  a  way  as  carefully  to  remove  all  those 
traces  by  which  they  could  be  recognized  as  genuine,  is  to  attribute  to  the  Chronicler  or  to 
his  predecessors  an  altogether  unexampled  stupidity,  especially  since  the  archaisms  would 
not  in  the  least  impair  the  intelligibility  of  the  documents. 


164  Ezra  Studies 

Mazaeus)  which  date  from  the  fourth  century,  for  example,  the 
relative  pronoun  is  always  "'T ,  and  the  root  of  the  demonstratives 
is  T  ;  in  all  the  inscriptions  (from  whatever  land)  dating  from 
the  third  century  b.  c.  or  later,  the  relative  pronoun  is  always 
''1 ,  and  the  demonstrative  root  is  1 .  The  condition  of  things  in 
biblical  Aramaic,  as  regards  the  sibilants  and  dentals  in  general, 
is  altogether  like  that  which  is  found  in  classical  Syriac  and  the 
Aramaic  of  the  Targums;  that  is,  it  belongs  to  the  final  stage 
of  the  development.  In  the  important  group  of  inscriptions  from 
Zenjirli  and  Nerab,  dating  from  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries 
B.  c,  the  vocabulary  has  not  yet  begun  to  be  "Aramaic"  in 
the  matter  of  these  dentals  and  sibilants.  It  stands  at  the  oppo- 
site extreme,  in  this  regard,  from  the  vocabulary  of  biblical 
Aramaic. 

The  Assuan-Elephantine  papyri,  which  cover  the  greater  part 
of  the  fifth  century,  dating  from  471  to  408  b.  c,  furnish  just  the 
added  information  which  was  needed,  for  they  occupy,  in  the 
most  unequivocal  manner,  the  middle  ground  between  the 
language  of  the  old  inscriptions  named  and  that  of  the  Aramaic 
of  the  Old  Testament.  The  relative  pronoun  is  ^T ,  everywhere, 
and  all  but  invariably.  In  one  text,  Cowley's  E,  11.  11  and  16, 
^1  is  found,  in  the  combination  ^Sb^l .  Similarly,  the  demon- 
strative root,  in  all  the  papyri,  is  T  ,  not  T .  We  have  the  forms 
HjT  ,  °IjT  ,  "IT ,  i^T ,  ■'jT  ,  a  multitude  of  them  in  the  aggregate ; 
while  forms  written  with  T  occur  twice,  XjI  and  ''jI,  both 
found  in  the  same  text.  In  the  case  of  nouns  and  verbs,  the 
"Aramaic"  transformation  of  the  susceptible  classes  of  sibilants 
is  already  well  under  way;  we  have  QH"'  (not  21I!''),  Smn ,  HID, 
etc.,  also  1D1,  ^m  "arm,"  niD ,  !J<nnTJ ,  etc.;  but  these  side 
by  side  with  U^nHT ,  Sachau  I,  12,28;  II,  10,  and  "pDT  (while  in 
Ezra  we  have  pjl  and  n31"lS"),  Sachau  III,  1  f.  That  is,  in 
the  Jewish  Aramaic  of  Egypt  which  prevailed  so  late  as  408  b.  c. 
the  characteristically  Aramaic  forms  of  the  demonstrative  and 
relative  pronouns  were  only  just  beginning  to  make  their  appear- 
ance, while  the  more  extensive  change  of  which  this  is  only  a 
single  manifestation  had  not  progressed  far.  From  the  way  in 
which  this  corresponds  to  the  progress  of  the  same  dialect  in 
northern  Syria,  we  can  draw  a  sure  conclusion  as  to  the  Aramaic 
which  was  written  at  this  time  in  Judea.  It  is  beyond  reasonable 
doubt  that  if  we  could  come  now  into  the  possession  of  specimens 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  165 

of  Palestinian  Aramaic  of  the  fourth  century  B.  C,  we  should 
find  that  during  this  period  the  l-forms  of  the  pronouns  gradually 
gained  the  upper  hand,  appearing  only  occasionally  in  the  first 
part  of  the  century,  but  becoming  the  rule  during  its  closing 
years.  Then  later  on,  in  the  third  century,  was  reached  that 
settled  state  of  things,  in  this  regard,  which  we  see  henceforth  in 
biblical  Aramaic,  the  inscriptions  of  Nabatea  and  Palmyra,  and 
the  other  later  representatives  of  the  western  dialect.  Thus  the 
linguistic  evidence  agrees  entirely  with  the  conclusions  reached 
on  other  grounds. 

In  numerous  other  particulars,  however,  the  biblical  dialect  is 
itself  seen  to  be  in  a  transitional  stage,  showing  the  beginning, 
or  the  early  stages,  of  certain  tendencies  which  became  fixed  at  a 
later  day.  For  example,  in  the  Egyptian  papyri,  and  previously, 
the  preformative  of  the  causative  stem  is  H ,  not  i^ ;  similarly  in 
the  other  derived  stems  which  begin  with  a  breathing.  In  bib- 
lical Aramaic  several  of  these  forms  begin  with  S  (see  the  note 
above) ;  in  the  Mcgillath  TanJth  and  some  of  the  other  old 
specimens  of  the  later  Jewish  Aramaic  the  forms  written  with  PI 
are  rare;  so  also  in  Nabatean  inscriptions;  later  still,  they  dis- 
appear altogether.  In  the  use  of  the  forms  TJH  ,  "p'-tl  for  the 
pronoun  of  the  3d  pers.  sing,  masc,  biblical  Aramaic  agrees  with 
the  fifth-century  papyri  (T^H).  But  in  both  Daniel  and  Ezra 
ap]3ears  the  form  'IIS,  which  soon  after  became  universal  (with 
slight  modifications  here  and  there).  The  use  of  the  proleptic 
suffix-pronoun,  so  characteristic  of  the  Aramaic  dialects  from 
Ezra  and  Daniel  onward,  seems  hardly  to  have  begun  as  early  as 
the  fifth  century,  judging  from  the  papyri  and  the  inscriptions. 
Another  instructive  instance  is  found  in  the  forms  of  the  con- 
struct infinitive  of  the  derived  verbal  stems.  For  these  infini- 
tives, tico  nearly  identical  abstract  noun-forms,  A  nb]^p['j],  etc., 
and  B  ^bl2p['J],  etc.,  are  chiefly  used  in  the  various  stages  of 
the  language.  For  the  absolute  infinitive,  forms  of  type  A 
are  everywhere  used  in  biblical  Aramaic,  and  continue  to  be 
regular  in  the  Jewish  dialects.  Forms  of  type  B  are  regular  in 
classical  Syriac,  and  appear  in  other  gentile  dialects;  e.  g., 
IZwnrrjb  in  the  Palmyrene  TariflP,  lie,  1.  -4.  For  the  construct 
infinitive,  on  the  other  hand,  forms  from  the  type  B  early  gained 
the  upper  hand,  even  in  Jewish  Aramaic.  Doubtless  there  was 
a  time  when  constructs  formed  from  A  were  commonly  used,  but 


166  Ezra  Studies 

we  see  in  Ezra  and  Daniel  only  the  vanishing  traces  of  such  a 
usage.  In  Ezr.  4:22  we  find  n^TZnb ,  and  in  Dan.  5:12  n^lrii ; 
though  some  of  our  recent  commentators  and  editors  have  wished 
to  "emend"  away  these  most  interesting  and  important  examples! 
Similar  forms  appear  now  and  then  in  the  later  Jewish  dialects 
of  Palestine  (Dalman,  Gramm.\  279),  see  for  example  Dalman's 
Dialeldprohen,  16,  1.  16,  -pnnps:;  /" 

The  number  of  these  illustrations  might  easily  be  increased 
still  further.  But  enough  has  been  said  to  show  clearly  the 
stage  of  linguistic  development,  in  general,  which  is  occupied  by 
the  Aramaic  sections  of  Ezra. 


IV.     PROPEE    NAMES    AND    FOREIGN    WORDS 

1.  Proper  Names 
In  beginning  this  brief  treatment  of  the  proper  names  which 
are  characteristic  of  the  Aramaic  part  of  Ezra,  a  preliminary 
word  of  a  general  character  may  be  permitted.  The  names  which 
Jewish  parents  in  the  Persian  and  Greek  periods  gave  to  their 
children  were  not  always,  and  perhaps  not  often,  given  because 
of  their  significance.  Doubtless  there  had  been  a  time,  in  early 
Hebrew  history,  when  the  etymology  of  the  name  was  the  prime 
consideration  leading  to  the  choice  of  it;  but  that  time  had  been 
long  outgrown,  and  the  Jews,  like  other  peoples,  had  become 
accustomed  to  choose  names  simply  because  they  liked  the  sound 
of  them,  or  because  they  were  borne  by  relatives  or  friends,  or 
for  some  good  omen  which  (quite  irrespective  of  their  origin) 
they  were  supposed  to  carry.  This  fact  is  especially  evident 
from  the  extent  to  which  foreign  names  were  given  to  the  chil- 
dren of  Jewish  parents.  When  a  Jewish  narrator  chooses  such 
names  as  "Esther"  and  "Mordecai"  for  his  hero  and  heroine,  it 
is  plain  that  names  borrowed  from  the  surrounding  peoples  were 
used  in  those  days  very  much  as  they  are  in  the  most  civilized 
nations  at  the  present  time.  And  all  the  indications  which  we 
have  point  in  this  direction.  The  Chronicler's  lists  (compiled 
by  him  presumably  from  the  names  of  the  prominent  Jews  of  his 
own  time)  contain  a  considerable  number  of  names  like  "Elam," 

:<<■' NOldeko,  Mandciische  Grammatik,  p.  142,  n.  3,  regards  the  fiual  -a  of  these  absolute 
infinitives  of  typo  A  as  the  emphatic,  rather  than  the  feminine,  ending.  It  seems  to 
me  that  the  evidence  hero  presented,  in  view  of  the  history  of  the  absolute  state  in  old 
Aramaic  and  the  analogy  of  the  infinitives  euding  in  ^— ,  is  decidedly  against  this  view. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  167 

"Pahath-Moab,"  "Nebo,"  and  "Bagoi"  (n:n),  all  of  which 
designate  true  Israelites.  The  writer  of  the  stories  in  the  first 
part  of  Daniel  names  one  of  his  heroes  IQD  "Qj? ,  a  name  which 
certainly  would  never  have  been  selected  if  it  had  not  been  well 
known  as  Jewish ;  so  also  when  the  pious  father  Mattathias  names 
one  of  his  boys  "Gaddi"  (from  the  heathen  god),"  it  is  evident 
that  the  time  had  long  passed  when  names  had  to  be  taken  at 
their  exact  face  value.  We  should  suppose,  moreover,  on  general 
grounds,  that  during  the  period  of  Persian  rule  Babylonian  and 
Persian  names  would  have  become  popular  in  Jerusalem  and 
Judea,  as  well  as  among  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion.  This  does, 
in  fact,  seem  to  have  been  the  case,  as  the  evidence  from  Pales- 
tine, Babylonia,  and  Egypt  shows  us. 

It  has  been  quite  usual  among  Old  Testament  scholars,  how- 
ever, to  assume  that  a  Babylonian  name  means  a  Babylonian,  a 
Persian  name  a  Persian,  and  so  on.  Thus  Cowley,  Papyri,  p.  13, 
speaking  of  the  names  which  occur  in  these  Jewish-Aramaic  rec- 
ords from  Upper  Egypt:  "In  some  cases  the  father  and  son  bear 
names  belonging  to  different  languages,  which  points  to  racial 
intermarriage.  Thus  Satibarzanes  is  the  son  of  Athar-ili,  a  name 
which  is  itself  Assyrianized  Aramaean,  and  Bagadates — the  Persian 
Baga-data — is  the  son  of  the  Babylonian  Nabu-kuduri-[uzurJ, 
The  Babylonians,  indeed,  seem  to  have  been  as  numerous  at  Syene 
as  the  Persians,  and  like  them  could  hold  official  posts."  But  this 
is,  I  think,  a  mistaken  view,  even  where  the  Jews  are  not  con- 
cerned at  all.  Even  in  those  days,  a  name  was  common  property, 
to  some  extent,  and  available  for  any  who  fancied  it.  In  regard 
to  Jewish  names  Cowley  says  [ibid.,  p.  37)  :  "The  name  of  Hosea's 
father,  Peti-khnum,  the  gift  of  Khnum,  seems  to  imply  that  the 

son  was  a  Jewish  proselyte In    mediaeval    and    modern 

times,  however,  it  is  customary  to  find  Jews  using  two  names,  one 
Hebrew  and  one  vernacular  for  ordinary  purposes.  Possibly  the 
practice  had  already  begun,^"  and  Peti-khnum  and  As-hor  were 
the  non-Hebrew  names  borne  by  Jews  who  were  rather  lax  in  their 
religious  views."     But  we  are  under  no  necessity  of  supposing 

37 See  the  Encycl.  Bihl.,  article  "Maccabees,"  §  1,  col.  2X51,  whore  I  have  tried  to  show 
that  the  names  Judah,  Simon,  Eleazar,  Jonathan,  etc.,  were  the  official  names  adopted 
by  the  Hasmonean  princes,  not  the  names  given  them  by  their  father. 

ssSachau  finds  such  a  double  name  in  the  Elephantine  letter,  concluding  that  '.Vnani 
("^3*7)1  the  brother  of  the  high  priest  in  Jerusalem,  boro  also  the  Persian  name  ^DDIS. 
But  the  more  natural  trans.  (11.  18 f.)  is  "Ostan,  the  brother  0/ Anani." 


168  Ezra  Studies 

that  the  men  bearing  these  names  were  either  gentiles  or  "Jews 
who  were  lax  in  their  religious  views,"  any  more  than  we  need 
suppose  that  every  Jew  named  "Isidor"  is  either  the  child  of 
Egyptian  parents  or  else  a  worshiper  of  Isis!  Of  course  it  is 
true  that  the  population  of  the  large  cities  both  in  Egypt  and  in 
Palestine  at  this  time  was  a  mixture  of  many  races  and  national- 
ities; it  is  also  true,  doubtless,  that  some  attention  was  paid  to  the 
etymology  of  names.  As  a  rule,  Persians  bore  Persian  names, 
Jews  Hebrew  names,  and  so  on;  but  considerable  latitude  must 
be  left  for  exceptions  to  the  rule.  Sachau,  Papyrusurkunden, 
p.  37,  writes:  "Wenn  nun  Sanaballat  seinen  Sohnen  judaische 
Namen  gab,  so  war  er  vermutlich  von  Geburt  ein  Nichtjudaer,  der 
spater  zum  Judentum  tibergetreten  war,  oder  er  war  von  Geburt 
Jude  und  liatte  wegen  irgendeiner  Rucksicht  auf  die  persische 

Herrschaft   einen   babylonischen   Namen    angenommen 

Warum  Sanaballat  nicht  gleich  einen  persischen  Namen  anstatt 
eines  babylonischen  angenommen,  ist  nicht  ersichtlich."  But  it 
is  probable  that  Sanaballat  was  either  a  Hebrew  of  the  North- 
Palestinian  stock,  or  else  of  Jewish  origin,  and  quite  possible  in 
either  case  that  he  had  borne  this  name  from  his  childhood.  It 
may  well  be  that  the  name  was  borne  by  many  in  the  land,  including 
some  devout  Jews.^*  "Zerubbabel"  is  a  good  Babylonian  name, 
but  was  probably  given,  without  much  thought  as  to  its  etymology, 
to  the  Jewish  boy  at  his  birth.  Similarly,  "Sheshbazzar"  had  in 
all  likelihood  been  naturalized  as  a  Jewish  name. 

Since  the  interpretation  of  not  a  few  of  the  proper  names  in  the 
Ezra  documents  depends  on  an  understanding  of  the  popular  Jewish 
notions  in  regard  to  the  origin  and  history  of  the  Samaritans, 
a  preliminary  word  on  that  subject  will  be  in  place. 

The  Samaritans  claimed  to  be,  and  probably  were  in  the  main, 
a  Hebrew  people  of  fairly  pure  blood.*"  The  Jews,  on  the  con- 
trary, maddened  by  the  pretensions  of  this  rival  temple  and  its 
adherents,  insisted  that  the  Samaritans  were  no  Hebrews  at  all. 
The  Jewish  tradition  as  to  the  origin  of  this  northern  community 
attached  itself  mainly  to  II  Kings  17:24-41;  cf.  17:3-(5  and 
18:9-11.     The  narrative  as  we  have  it  is  not  historical,  but  merely 

39  N6l<loko,  ZeiUchrift  filr  Assyriologie,  1907,  p.  204,  iioto  2,  says  in  regard  to  one  of  the 
names  in  Neliemiah:  "Einecliter  Ammoniter  hatte  kaum  rT^^TU  geheissen."  But  do  we 
know  so  deflnitoly  as  this  what  au  "echter  Ammoniter"  was,  at  that  time,  and  how  strict 
the  Ammonites  were  in  the  matter  of  names'? 

**»So  modern  anthropologists  have  generally  decided. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  169 

fanciful,  and  appears  to  date,  at  least  in  its  present  form,  from  a 
time  later  than  the  Samaritan  secession.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is 
certain  that  the  standard  Jewish  tradition  asserted  that  the  people 
who  constituted  the  rival  church  were  a  mixed  rabble  brought  into 
the  land  by  the  Assyrian  king  Shalmanassar.  Then  it  was, 
according  to  the  tradition,  that  the  great  transfer  of  peoples  took 
place,  the  heathen  being  brought  in  to  take  the  place  of  the  deported 
Israelites;  and  the  author  of  this  deportation  is  always  said  to  have 
been  Shalmanassar  (cf.  Tobit  1:2,  15,  16).  The  manner  in  which 
Ezr.  4:9  f.  attaches  itself  to  the  account  given  in  II  Kings  will 
appear  below.  This  being  the  case,  the  statement  made  in  Ezr.  4:2 
is  very  noticeable  and  interesting.  The  reason  why  the  Chronicler 
should  thus  make  the  Samaritans  ascribe  their  own  deportation  to 
Esarhaddon  may  be  conjectured,  however.  Very  likely  he  reasoned, 
shrewdly  enough,  that  this  documentary  admission  of  their  own 
"heathen''  origin  would  weigh  all  the  heavier  against  them  if  it 
was  manifestly  independent  of  the  Jewish   tradition." 

The  following  is  a  list  of  the  proper  names  which  are  charac- 
teristic of  these  Aramaic  documents  in  Ezra: 

"i£ICi5  4:10.  So  the  massoretic  text,  with  which  the  Egyptian 
Greek  of  Ezra,  Aaevva^ap,  and  the  Vulgate,  Osnappcu\  agree. 
There  is  some  evidence,  however,  that  this  was  not  the  read- 
ing of  the  Ai'amaic  text  from  which  Theodotion  made  his 
version,  early  in  the  second  century  a.  d.  The  L  text  gives 
here  'EaXfjuavaaadpr]';.  This  is  hardly  a  correction,  for  the 
connection  with  the  narrative  in  II  Kings  is  not  a  necessary 
one ;  moreover,  the  occurrence  of  the  name  AxopBav.  in  the 
parallel  verse  2,  just  above,  shows  that  no  theonj  was  at  work 
here.  The  I  Esdras  fragment  does  not  contain  the  passage, 
which  seems  to  have  been  interpolated  after  the  time  when 
the  old   Greek   translation   was   made   (see  below).     In  all 

^iTIie  Greek  readings  of  the  name  in  4:2  are  not  witliout  interest  as  characteristic 
specimens  of  text-corruption.  The  L  text  of  Theodotion  has  [NJoxopSai',-  the  N  coming  from 
the  preceding  rj/xepoii',  and  the  Xx"?^'^"  being  a  careless  hapUigram  of  Kaopxa&av  (cf.  the  Vul- 
gate Asorhaddon) .  The  reading  of  the  I  Esdr.  fragment  was  \.<TPa<japi8( !),  which  originated 
as  follows  :  In  the  old  Greek  version  "JTniCX  was  transliterated  by  aaapt9u>v  (or  doubtless 
originally  ao-apticui'),  and  this  in  the  process  of  transmission  lost  the  ambiguous  ending  oiv 
and  received  at  the  beginning  an  increment  which  may  have  been  due  to  dittography,  but  in 
which  the  recollection  of  the  name  'S.aaa^a<raap  also  exercised  its  influence.  The  close  rela- 
tionship among  the  various  Hexaplar  texts  is  well  illustrated  here,  botii  of  tlie  blunders 
in  A<rPa<ca(fra8  (codd.  B,  N,  and  the  Ethiopic)  being  reproduced,  with  one  extra  one,  in 
Z^sxl^^j.  Cod.  A  has  the  correct  reading.  The  L  text  gives  \\op&a.v.  a  conspicuous 
example  of  contamination  from  the  canonical  Gieek. 


170  Ezra  Studies 

probability,  Josephus  had  a  Greek  version  of  it  before  him 
when  he  wrote,  judging  from  the  words  ov<;  ....  ayaymv 
"^aXfiavaaadpr}^  ....  KarcpKia-ev  iv^Zafiapeia  (^Antt.  xi,  2,  1). 
On  the  basis  of  this  evidence,  as  well  as  on  the  ground  of 
general  probability,  we  may  venture  to  restore  "Shalmanas- 
sar."  From  the  form  1C3/JI23"  came  1CD/^!j5  ,  and  then 
"iSjCX  ,  these  changes  being  only  such  as  have  occurred 
many  times  over  in  the  proper  names  of  this  book.  The 
Egyptian  Greek  here  is  the  result  of  correction  to  correspond 
with  the  corrupt  reading  of  our  MT. 

S"C^SU^  4:9.  The  gentilic  name  of  the  people  of  a  certain 
"nation"  (&$l2i<)  from  which  the  Samaritans  had  been 
recruited.  Probably  "Persians,"  the  initial  5<  having  been 
transposed  by  accident  from  the  preceding  word. 

J^'-inC^Si^  4:9.  Another  gentilic  adjective.  Created  (on  the 
basis  of  the  word  S!^^!jC"i3X  ,  5:6;  6:6)  by  the  interpolator 
of  4:9  f.,  in  the  manner  described  below,  p.  183. 

[U5J^1!j^55  Another  of  the  names  in  the  list  of  4:9.  "Men  of 
Erech;"  perhaps  originally  ''■'j"ii^  (for  i<''~)  ? 

i^nC'^rnnnji  7:12  (cf.  7:1;  Neh.  2^:1,  etc.).  The  form  used  in 
the  massoretic  tradition  to  designate  Artaxerxes  II  Mnemon ; 
see  the  name  below. 

Sn'irirnmj^  4:8,  ll,  23.  The  massoretic  way  of  writing  the 
name  of  Artaxerxes  I  Longimanus;  that  of  Artaxerxes  II  (in 
Ezr.,  chaps.  7,  8;  Neh.,  chaps.  2,  5,  13)  being  always  written 
with  D .  Contrast  with  this  the  spelling  of  the  name  in  the 
Jewish  papyri  of  the  fifth  century  b.  c,  found  in  Egypt, 
where  it  is  always  written  '^23C"^^n^1^^ ;  so  also  on  the  stele 
from  Assuan,  Repertoire  (Tepigraphie  s^mitique,  438,  1.  4." 

!J<"'b3Q  A  gentilic  name  from  the  list  in  4:9.  "Men  from 
Babylon." 

^""Tl  4:9.  Originally  the  noun  "judges,"  which  had  been 
inicrpolaied  in  the  Aramaic  text  of  4:11  ivhich  lay  before 

<-It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  tlie  5  was  as  commonly  omitted  as  the  A  was  in  the 
Greek.  In  II  Kings  17:3,  B  has  2a;u.ecacrcrap ;  in  IS: 9,  A  has  Sa^arao-crap.  In  Tobit  1:2,  15,  16, 
both  recensions  read  [2]€i'«M«<''crap  (the  2  from  the  word  rj/oiepais  immodiately  preceding  in 
two  of  the  three  passages).  In  I  Esdr.  2: 11,  14 ;  6:17,  19,  where  the  Syrian  text  substitutes 
'"Shalmanassar"  for  "' Sanabassar,"  Origen's  text  had  Sa/uavao-o-ap  in  2:11  and  U. 

<ilt  must  be  remembered,  liowever,  that  this  is  the  Egyptian  form  of  tiie  name,  cor- 
responding to  the  mnnner  of  writing  it  in  the  hieroglyphic  characters.  The  form  given  us 
by  the  massoretes  differs  only  sliglitly  from  those  which  we  find  in  the  cuneiform  records: 
Artakiutsu  (KB  iv,  :^12,  4),  Artakiassu  (Stevenson,  Assyr.  and  Bab.  Contracts,  198,  No.  40, 
7),  etc. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  171 

the  '^ I  Esdras''''  translator;  see  below.  Thence  made  into 
a  gentilic  adjective  by  the  author  and  interpolator  of  vss.  9  f. ; 
cf.  the  note  on  ^'mC^SS  . 

"JJVn  4:24;  5:5;  G:l,  etc.  Darius  (Nothus,  according  to  the 
view  of  these  Jewish  writers).  Compare  the  Egyi)tian 
spelling  "vTinVI" ,  occurring  uniformly  in  the  Jewish  Ara- 
maic papyri  from  Egypt.^* 

S^bs^tS  Gentilic  name  from  the  list  in  4:9.  The  only  name  of  a 
locality  which  seems  to  meet  the  requirements  is  TeTpd7ro\L<i. 
This  included  Antioch,  Seleucia,  Apamea,  and  Laodicea 
(Strabo,  xvi,  749,  750)  ;  a  region  which  we  should  expect  to 
see  represented  here,  since  according  to  II  Kings  17:24 
Shalmanassar  brought  the  Samaritans  not  only  from  Baby- 
lonia, but  also  "from  Hamath."  The  fact  that  the  verse 
containing  the  word  was  interpolated  at  a  comparatively  late 
day  makes  it  easy  to  accept  this  Greek  name. 

mm  4:8,  17,  23.  The  name  of  the  U^X:  hyz,  or  "reporter"  of 
the  afiPairs  of  the  province,  who  dwelt  in  Samaria  in  the  time 
of  Artaxerxes  I.  An  Aramaic  name,  and  one  which  the 
Chronicler  is  fond  of  inserting  in  his  lists.  The  form  FdOv- 
/A09,  found  in  I  Esdras,  is  the  result  of  corruption  in  the 
Greek,   PAOYMOC  becoming   PA0YMOC. 

S^j'uJTvIJ  Still  another  gentilic  name  from  the  list  in  4:9.  Ap- 
parently "men  from  Susa."  The  form  is  interesting,  if  the 
D  really  stands  for  the  Persian  suffix  -ka. 

■"jj'i'jj  4:8,  17,  23.  Name  of  the  secretary  who  was  associated 
with  Rehum.  Evidently  the  same  name  as  the  Babylonian 
Samas-a-a,  found  in  Stevenson,  Assyrian  and  BabijJonian 
Contracts,  No.  37,  1.  17.  It  also  appears  in  Syria  at  a  later 
day.  The  I  Esdras  reading  1afX€X\io<;  came  from  CAMGAIOC 
=  CAMCAIOC  ;  i.  e.,  a  copyist  carelessly  put  the  cross-bar  in 
the  wrong  letter. 

i:22":;'JJ  5:14,  16.  I  have  already  discussed  this  name  at  length, 
in  dealing  with  the  first  chapter  of  Ezra,  and  have  shown  that 
the  I  Esdras  reading  "Sanabassar"  is  the  result  of  early 
Greek  corruption  from  "^aaa^acra-ap  (above,  p.  138).  Proba- 
bly a  naturalized  Jewish  name. 

*«  Notice  also,  in  this  connection,  that  the  "documents"  in  Ezra  use  the  late  and  incor- 
rect form  nSIlSin;,  written  with  ;,  which  prevailed  in  the  Greek  period.  So  in  all 
three  of  the  passages  (3: 12.  14;  6:5)  where  the  name  occurs. 


172  Ezra  Studies 

^DTll'^ri'j:  5:3,  6;  6:6,  13.  This  is  probably  a  mis  writing  of  the 
Persian  name  "T^Hln'kU  ,  Satibarzanes,  which  appears  in  the 
Assuan  papyri  (Cowley's  A,  1.  16,  possibly  also  E,  1.  18). 
Perhaps,  however,  nnaJ(i^) ,  Istar,  +  ^3^2 ,  the  Persian  end- 
ing which  appears  in  the  Greek  transcription  Mi6po^ov^avr]<i, 
Diod.  Sic.  xvii,  21,  3;  Arrian,  Aiuib.,  i,  16,  3.  As  for  the 
proposal  to  emend  here  to  'in"2  ,  it  is  not  even  probable 
that  this  Jewish  narrative  was  ever  written  in  the  old 
Hebrew  characters.  It  is  uncertain,  and  a  matter  of  small 
importance,  whether  the  narrator  wished  to  represent  the 
bearer  of  this  name  as  a  Persian  or  as  a  Samaritan  of  Per- 
sian extraction,  but  the  latter  is  more  likely. 

^3nn  5 : 3,  6 ;  6 : 6,  13.  A  Babylonian  name.  The  equivalent  of  the 
Taddamm  which  is  found  in  Babylonian  records  of  the  time  of 
Nabunaid  and  Cyrus  (Muss-Arnolt,  Dictionary,  pp.  1148  f.). 
That  the  form  Tatiannu  also  existed  may  be  taken  for  granted, 
since  the  verb  natdnu  (for  naddnn)  is  common,  and  found 
also  in  proper  names.*'  Originally  an  abbreviated  (hypo- 
coristic)  form,  cf.  the  name  Nabu-taddannu,  Muss-Arnolt,  loc. 
cif.  The  pronunciation  of  the  name  is  correctly  transmitted 
by  the  massoretes.  That  the  ^adOavai  of  cod.  A  and  its 
fellows  is  Theodotion's  own  transliteration  needs  no  argument ; 
the  forms  ^avdavac,  Tavdavat,  etc.,  are  arbitrary  improve- 
ments. The  old  Greek  translator  (represented  by  I  Esdras), 
who  was  a  well-read  man,  conjectured  StcriW?;?,  but  the  con- 
jecture is  of  no  value  for  us." 

The  names  nb'^2 ,  nT^n*^ ,  and  bS2i: ,  4:6  (MT  7),  may 
also  be  mentioned  here,  though  they  occur  in  a  verse  (the 
Chronicler's)  which  is  not  written  in  Aramaic.  Ub'XJ.  is  appar- 
ently the  Babylonian  name  Bel-sallim;"  cf.  Nahu-sallim 
(Stevenson,  Assyr.  and  B(d).   Contracts,  p.   148),  Sin-sallimani 

■'■''Since  this  was  written,  I  have  seen  Clay's  article,  "Aramaic  Indorsements  on  the 
Documents  of  the  Murasu  Sons,"  in  the  O.  T.  and  Sem.  Studies  in  Memory  of  W.  R.  Harper, 
Vol.  I  aOOS),  pp.  287-321.  The  name  given  in  his  No.  18  (pp.  293,  306)  is  the  very  one  which  is 
needed.  The  document  is  dated  in  the  second  year  of  Darius  II,  and  the  name  is  Taltanmc, 
writeii  "nn  in  the  accompanying  Aramaic  characters. 

■»8 Cowley,  Assuan  Papyri,  p.  42,  writes:  "Two  Babylonian  contracts  of  the  first  and 
third  years  of  Darius  describe  Tatnai  as  governor  of  Ebir-nari:'  This  is  a  mistake,  based 
on  a  conjectural  emendation  of  our  text  which  never  had  any  probability. 

■"By  supposing  an  Aramaic  name  Bel-Salam,  "Bel  is  peace,"  we  could  retain  the 
massoretic  pointing,  QbTlJQ-  But  we  have  thus  far  no  entirely  satisfactory  analogies  for 
such  a  name. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  173 

(Muss-Arnolt,  p.  1042),  etc.  The  original  "I  Esdras"  translit- 
eration was  BiaXefjio^  or  Brja-Xe/xo'i,  and  the  o-  was  accidentally 
dropped  by  a  copyist.  The  "  BeeXcrt/io? "  of  the  I  Esdras  L  text 
is  a  flagrant  instance  of  textual  contamination,  since  it  is  merely 
one  of  the  corrupt  variants  of  the  transliteration  of  D>13  5^2  : 
BeeXre/io?,  -^e/Lto9,  -aefiof,  which  are  found  here  even  in  the  appa- 
ratus of  Niese's  Josephus.  As  for  the  other  two  names:  rniD'J  , 
Mithradates,  is  Persian,  and  is  employed  by  the  Chronicler  also 
in  Ezr.  1:8;  bs^ti ,  Tab-'' el,  is  Aramaic,  and  occurs  also  in 
Isaiah  7:6. 

It  may  be  merely  accidental,  but  it  is  certainly  worthy  of 
notice,  that  in  each  one  of  these  enumerations  by  name  of  the 
enemies  of  the  Jews,  the  names  are  such  as  to  point  to  as  many 
different  nationalities  as  possible.  In  5:3,  etc.,  Tattenai 
is  Babylonian  and  Satibarzanes  is  Persian;  in  4:8,  etc.,  Rehum 
is  native  Aramaic,  and  also  Jewish  (and  of  course  the  Samaritan 
community  was  supposed  to  contain  Hebrews  and  renegade  Jews, 
as  well  as  foreigners),  and  Shimshai  is  Babylonian;  in  4:6  (7) 
Bishlam  is  Babylonian,  Mithradath  is  Persian,  and  Tab'el  is  Syrian 
(representing  apparently  those  Samaritans  who  were  brought  from 
the  region  of  Hamath).  It  is  true,  as  was  pointed  out  above,  that 
at  the  time  when  this  was  written  the  nationality  of  names  counted 
for  much  less  than  had  formerly  been  the  case;  but  on  the  other 
hand,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  Jewish  narrators  of  the  time 
did  recognize  the  distinction  between  names  in  this  regard,  and 
■created  "local  color"  accordingly.  And  it  is  quite  certain  that 
"even  in  the  Hellenistic  period  a  native  of  Palestine  or  of  any  other 
country  inhabited  by  Jews  might  without  difficulty  have  collected 
a  large  number  of  Persian  names"  (Noldeke,  Eiicyl.  Bibl.,  article 
"Esther,"  §3). 

2.      The  Foreign    M\>r<ls 

What  has  just  been  said  in  regard  to  Persian  names  is  also  true 
of  other  Persian  words.  The  Chronicler,  or  the  author  of  Daniel, 
or  any  other  story-teller  of  the  Greek  period  in  Jerusalem,  could 
easily  procure  as  many  of  these  words  as  he  wished  to  use.  When 
it  is  observed  how  much  fewer  in  proportion  these  Persisms  are  in 
the  Jewish  papyri  of  Egypt  than  they  are  in  the  Aramaic  of  Ezra 
and  Daniel,  the  conclusion  lies  near  at  hand  that  our  narrators 
introduced  at  least  some  of  them  for  effect. 


174  Ezra  Studies 

The  nature  and  manner  of  use  of  one  or  two  of  the  words, 
moreover,  point  in  the  same  direction.  Such  a  common  word  as 
the  adverb  "diligently"  need  not  have  been  borrowed  by  the  Ara- 
maic from  any  foreign  source;  yet  we  find  it  eight  times,  in 
these  Ezra  documents,  expressed  by  the  one  or  the  other  of  two 
curious  Persian  (?)  words  which  are  otherwise  unknown.  It  is 
hard  to  believe  that  this  represents  the  actual  usage  of  any  period 
of  Jewish  (or  any  other)  Aramaic.  If  the  adverb  occurred  only 
once  or  twice  we  might  not  look  on  it  with  suspicion,  Init  this  obvi- 
ous parading  of  it  can  hardly  be  accidental. 

It  is  perhaps  not  surprising,  on  any  theory,  that  the  origin  of 
about  one  half  of  these  foreign  words  should  remain  more  or  less 
obscure.  It  is  usually  only  the  etymology  which  is  uncertain, 
however,  for  the  meaning  is  made  plain  by  the  context  in  nearly 
every  case.  The  most  of  the  words  which  can  be  recognized  are 
Persian  or  Babylonian ;  two  or  three  are  Greek ;  of  the  remainder, 
nothing  can  be  said  with  confidence  at  present. 

!J<nTm5<  7:23.  An  adverb,  meaning  "diligently,  zealously,"  as 
the  context  shows.  It  looks  like  a  Persian  word,  but  no 
plausible  explanation  of  it  has  been  given  thus  far.  It  seems 
to  be  the  equivalent  of  ^^D■'^C^5 ;  see  below. 

i<DnSCl!<  5:8;  6:8,  12,  13;  7:17,  21,  26.  Also  an  adverb,  with 
the  same  meaning  as  the  preceding — and  no  other  meaning 
will  fit  all  the  places  where  it  occurs.  The  I  Esdras  trans- 
lator renders  both  alike  by  eTrt/ieXco?.  The  word  is  otherwise 
unknown,  and  the  attempted  explanations  of  it  are  far-fetched. 
We  are  certainly  not  justified  in  connecting  it  with  the  prob- 
lematic word  in  the  Aramaic  inscription,  CIS,  II,  108.  The 
reading  of  the  word  there  (generally  given  as  "pSCU^)  is  by 
no  means  assured;  the  sense  of  the  whole  inscription  is 
unknown;  and  the  meaning  "exact,"  usually  postulated 
there,  will  not  do  at  all  in  the  Ezra  passages. 

i<^:2C"iS&5  5:6;  6:6.  An  official  title  of  the  governors  of  the 
Transflumen,  of  whom  Tattenai  was  one.  Apparently  the 
Aramaic  plural  of  the  naturalized  Greek  word  eirapxo'i,  the 
D  and  C  being  transposed  (naturally;  as  in  Al-iskandar  for 
Alexander,  etc.),  and  the  plural  ending  added  in  the  usual 
way.  These  are  the  ^riS"  ^2V  nilHS ,  "the  eparchs  of  the 
Transflumen,"   Ezr.  8:3r);  Neh.  2:7,  9,  and   e-rrapxo^   is   the 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  175 

usual  equivalent  (cf.  "die  standige  Bezeiclinung,"  Meyer, 
Entsfchung,  32,  note)  of  {1)13/*  It  is  quite  likely  that  the 
author  of  these  documents  supposed  this  to  be  a  Persian 
word. 

CnSS  4:13.  From  the  context,  evidently  a  feminine  noun  signi- 
fying "revenue,"  as  scholars  have  generally  agreed.  The 
suggestion  of  Andreas,  "damage"  (!),  in  Marti's  glossary,  is 
plainly  impossible.  Neither  the  old  Greek  translator  nor 
Theodotion  ventured  to  render  the  word.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  it  is  a  Greek  technical  term;  either  e7rn-a|t9,  "taxation," 
or  iTTideai';,  "impost,"  either  one  of  which  words  might  have 
been  transliterated  in  this  way.  In  favor  of  the  former 
might  be  cited  the  passage  Herod,  iii,  89,  where,  in  speaking 
of  the  imposition  of  tribute  by  Darius  upon  the  various 
divisions  of  the  Persian  empire,  the  phrase  77  e7riTa|i?  tov 
<^6pov  is  used.  But  the  terms  iirtTidevai,  iirideaL^;,  are  also 
used  technically  in  speaking  of  the  "imposition"  of  tribute, 
fines,  and  the  like,  and  in  view  of  the  exctct  transliteration 
of  the  latter  word  it  is  to  be  preferred.  This  explains  the 
gender  of  the  verb  pTDniTI ;  the  phrase  yDb'2  CDSi^  (notice 
that  it  is  not  ^db'2  or  i<"'ljb"J)  means  ?}  ^aa-iXcKr}  eTrt^eo-t?, 
"the  royal  taxation,"  and  the  gender  of  the  borrowed  word  is 
retained,  as  usual.  Here,  again,  it  is  quite  likely  that  the 
Aramaic  narrator  did  not  know  the  origin  of  the  term,  but 
supposed  it  to  be  Persian.  It  is  barely  possible  that  the 
writing  with  E  is  due  to  a  reminiscence  of  the  sound  of  the 
Greek  tt.  As  for  the  vowel  pointing  CriES ,  it  is  exactly 
as  valuable  as  that  of  C"irip ,  for  KidapL<i,  in  Dan.  3:5,  7,  10. 

S'"i'r5<  5:3,  0.  A  good  illustration  of  the  relative  excellency  of 
MT,  inasmuch  as  both  the  old  Greek  translator  and 
Theodotion  (versions  nearly  or  quite  three  hundred  years 
apart)  had  the  word  before  them  in  the  form  S"'!*^ ; 
the  former  as  S^^SX ,  a-reyi],  "roof,"  and  the  latter  as  i^TiSl , 
Xoprjyia,  "outlay"  (for  hired  labor).     So  long,  therefore,  as 

♦That  Tattenai  is  thought  of  here  as  the  satrap  of  the  whole  Transflumen,  is  of  course 
not  the  case.  He  was  the  "  governor  "  of  his  province,  just  as  Zerubbabel,  at  the  same  time, 
was  governor  (nOS  -  •':"•  i"  Juripa,  as  Sheshbazzar  had  bpeu  previously  (5:14),  and  as 
Bagohi  IS  said  in  the  Sachau  papyri  to  have  been  the  Tin"'  PflD  in  thi-  years  411-4ftS.  The 
narrator  utes  the  torm  X'CS'IBS.  eVapxoi,  hero  in  the  same  way  that  his  immediate  suc- 
cessor, the  Chronicler,  uses  the  eciuivalent  terms  in  liis  "Ezra  Memoirs,"  8:36,  when;  Ezra, 
after  arriving  in  Jerusalem,  hands  over  the  decrees  of  the   king   "^blSn    ■^SD^lCnSb 

"in:n  -ar  nnnsi. 


176  Ezra  Studies 

the  word  given  in  MT  remained  otherwise  unattested,  the 
only  safe  critical  procedure  was  to  adopt  the  reading  ^^■'^i^ . 
But  now  the  word  SJ^j^lTJ^  has  again  come  to  light  in  the 
papyri  published  by  Sachau,  the  reading  being  quite  certain. 
In  the  Egyptian  document  [Drei  aram.  Papyrusurlainden, 
I,  11)  it  signifies  a  part  (just  which  part,  is  not  clear)  of 
the  temple  at  Elephantine ;  in  the  Ezra  passages,  also,  it  has 
always  been  evident  that  it  stands  for  a  part  of  the  temple  at 
Jerusalem.  I  believe  that  the  word  means  ''■colonnade;'''' 
that  it  is  the  same  as  the  "lid  of  the  Bod-'astart  inscription, 
CIS,  I,  4,  1.  4;  and  that  it  is  probably  to  be  connected  with 
the  Assyrian  word  su7-innu*^  The  prosthetic  S<,  in  that 
case,  would  be  merely  euphonic.  In  the  description  of  the 
destruction  of  the  Jewish  temple  in  Egypt,  first  the  inner 
sanctuary  is  mentioned,  with  its  pillars;  then  the  gates,  with 
their  doors;  then  the  roofing,  made  of  beams  of  cedar;  then 
"the  rest  of^"  the  portico,"  J^j^iTi^  n^"^U; ,  "and  whatever 
else  was  there."  The  phrase  "and  the  columns  which  were 
there,"  used  in  speaking  of  the  sanctuary  proper,  may 
perhaps  be  taken  to  imply  that  there  were  other  columns 
elsewhere,  namely  in  the  outer  court.  As  for  the  context  in 
Ezra,  it  is  at  least  natural  to  suppose  that  there  an  important 
and  conspicuous  part  of  the  whole  structure  is  meant.  Point 
perhaps  IJ^j^TTi^  ?  I  am  of  course  fully  aware  of  the  precarious 
character  of  these  conclusions. 
ibn  Only  in  the  standing  phrase  ~bni  ib^  HI"-,  4:13,  20; 
7:21.  ibn  is  not  to  be  separated  from  the  Babylonian  abdln, 
the  noun  hiltn,  etc.,  though  the  precise  nature  of  the  form  is 
is  still  uncertain.  'n'^j12  is  also  a  Babylonian  loan-word, 
mandattu,  as  is  well  known.  Also  in  the  form  JT^p ,  6:8; 
Neh.  5:4.  "^bn  ,  judging  from  its  etymology,  means  chs/o?«, 
"gang  und  gebe,"  binding  usage  (as  regards  tribute);  cf. 
riDbjl,  and  the  English  word  "custom"  meaning  tax.  It  is 
not  likely  that  it  has  anything  to  do  with  roads,  as  some 
have  supposed.  Probably  not  a  loan-word  from  the  Baby- 
lonian, though  the  latter  appears  to  have  some  closely  ana- 
logous usage,  cf.  especially  the  various  uses  of  ilJcu. 

♦9  I  have  previously  suegestod  the  connection  of  the  Phoenician  word  with  the  Assj'rian ; 
Journal  of  the  Am.  Or.  Society,  Vol.  XXIII,  1902,  pp.  171  f. 

^OSo  read  and  interpreted  by  Fraenkel,  Theol.  Litz.,  23  Nov.,  1907,  and  NOldeke,  ZA, 
XXI,  199,  while  Sachau  reads  n'^T'Tr  • 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  177 

■^^t:.  7:21.  The  Prrsiau  word  "treasurer;"  possibly  borrowed 
through  the  Babylonian,  where  it  also  appears." 

m  7:12,  14,  21,  25,  26.  The  Persian  word  "law."  Also  used 
in  the  Aramaic  of  Daniel. 

"ibn     Possibly  borrowed  ?     See  the  note  on  ibn  . 

rHZ'C     See  the  note  on  *lbn  . 

■jin'JJD  4:18,  23;  5:5.  Also,  in  Hebrew,  4:7;  7:11.  A  noun 
meaning  "letter;"  origin  not  yet  satisfactorily  explained. 
The  resemblance  to  old  Persian  nqiistam,  modern  Persian 
v.:^^  ,  "writing,"  is  too  close  to  be  accidental.     Possibly 

the  result  of  writing  down  an  unfamiliar  word  from  hearsay  ? 

M'^3  4:11,  23;  5:6.  Also,  in  Hebrew,  7:11  and  (in  the  form 
"ij"i2JnS)  Esther  3:14;  4:8;  8:13.  Apparently  a  genuine 
Persian  loan-word,  "copy;"  but  the  origin  of  the  form,  and 
the  relation  to  that  found  in  Esther,  are  not  yet  clear. 

D3n3  4:17;  5:7,  11;  6:11.  Also  Dan.  3:16;  4:14,  and  (Hebrew) 
Esth.  1:20;  Eccles.  8:11;  very  common  in  later  Aramaic 
and  classical  Syriac.  It  is  an  exact  synonym  of  ^21,  i.  e. 
''word,'"'  which  is  occasionally  weakened  to  "thing."  It 
does  not  mean  "answer,"  nor  "decree,"  nor  "message,"  as  is 
often  affirmed ;  and  it  thus  stands  at  some  distance,  both  in 
meaning  and  in  form,  from  the  modern  Persian  imighdm, 
"message"  (the  "old  Persian  jxdighdnia"  from  patigam, 
"arrive,"  has  not  actually  been  found).  The  hypothesis  of 
a  Greek  loan-word,  namely  (f)6eyfjLa,  "word,  utterance,"  is 
more  probable  on  all  grounds.  The  Greek  translators  render 
DjDS  regularly  by  prjfjia  and  \6yo^;  the  word  in  its  Syriac 
form  is  also  used  ordinarily  to  translate  X,o709,  pijfia,  ctto?, 
<f)d6'yyo<;,  (pOoyyr],  (fiOey/xa  (Syr. -Hex.  in  Job  6 : 26,  Wisd.  1:11). 

Of  the  words  discussed  in  the  preceding  list,  at  least  four  are 
Persian;  three  (possibly  four)  are  Babylonian;  three  are  Greek; 
two  are  altogether  unknown,  but  seem  more  likely  to  be  Persian 
(if  they  are  genuine  words)  than  anything  else.  Counting  all 
their  occurrences,  they  appear  in  these  few  chapters  more  than 
forty  times,  a  very  noteworthy  fact.  Such  well-known  and 
understood  loan-words  as  ^'^3^^ ,  !J<T::»  ,  bm ,  Hns ,  which  have 
been  truly  adopted  by  the  Aramaic,  are  left  out  of  consideration. 

51  As  ganzabaru:  Peiser,  in  ZATW  (1897),  p.  347.  The  massoretic  pointing  is  therefore 
of  doubtful  value  ;  see  the  note  on  the  verse,  below;  also  Andreas,  in  Marti's  glossary. 


178  Ezra  Studies 

v.    the  history  of  the  text  of  4:6-11 

The  restoration  of  vss.  6-11  which  is  given  here  is  substan- 
tially the  same  as  that  which  I  made  in  1895,  and  printed  in  my 
Composition  of  Ezra,  p.  6.  The  principal  difference  is  in  the 
treatment  of  vs.  8,  which  I  formerly  regarded  as  made  up  of 
two  parts,  namely,  (1)  the  proper  names  which  had  been 
pushed  out  of  vs.  7,  and  (2)  a  clause  which  had  originally  stood 
at  the  end  of  vs.  10,  but  was  now  transposed  by  the  copyist  in  order 
to  repair  the  damage  which  he  had  done.  On  further  considera- 
tion, it  has  seemed  to  me  that  the  true  explanation  is  simpler  than 
this,  and  that  vs.  8,  in  exactly  its  present  wording,  originally 
formed  the  beginning  of  the  document  incorporated  by  the  Chron- 
icler. The  conclusion  follows  of  necessity,  that  the  vss.  9-10 
are  an  interpolation;  for  it  is  quite  obvious  that  the  man  who 
wrote  vs.  8  cannot  have  written  the  first  words  of  vs.  9  as  its  con- 
tinuation. The  incorporated  narrative,  moreover,  is  not  very 
likely  to  have  begun  with  the  word  ■j"'lS  ;  but  this  would  have 
been  a  natural  way  of  beginning  the  interpolation,  which  is, 
indeed,  made  in  the  easiest  possible  manner.  I  have  always  be- 
lieved the  list  of  names  in  vs.  9  (see  below)  to  be  secondary, 
and  it  was  for  the  sake  of  these,  and  their  tling  at  the  Samaritans, 
that  the  interpolation  was  made.  The  first  clause  of  vs.  10  is  the 
counterpart  of  vs.  2/3,  above,  and  the  remainder  is  derived  from 
vs.  17.  The  first  clause  of  vs.  11  might  belong  either  to  the  in- 
terpolation or  to  the  original  document ;  but  it  is  plainly  better  to 
regard  it  in  the  former  way. 

This  restoration  involves  no  change  in  the  text  beyond  the 
returning  of  "Bishlam,  Mithredath,  Tabel  and  his  companions" 
to  vs.  6,  and  the  filling  of  the  gap  thus  made  in  vs.  7  with  the 
names  "Rehum  the  reporter  and  Shimshai  the  scribe."  By  my 
former  restoration,  vss.  9-11  were  made  to  read  more  smoothly; 
but  an  interpolated  text  is  not  expected  to  be  smooth.  The 
suspended  construction  in  vss.  9-11,  "j'^li^  having  no  direct  con- 
nection with  any  verb,  is  in  no  way  remarkable. 

The  variation  in  the  tradition  of  these  verses  afforded  by  the 
I  Esdras  fragment  is  both  interesting  and  important.  The  Greek 
text^^  reads:  '^'Ey  he  toI^  iirl  'Apra^ep^ov  rod  Uepacov  /SaaiXeco'i 
XpovoL<i  KUTeypayjrev  avrw"^  Kara  tmv  KaroiKOvvrcov  iv  rrj  'lovSaia  ical 

fj^l  have  emended  the  Greek  only  at  those  points  where  the  evidence  seems  conclusive. 
5:iThe  Hexaplar  text  (inferior,  as  usual  in  the  Ezra  books)  has  aurwi'.    So  B,  Syr.,  Eth. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  179 

'lepovcraXrjfj.  BicrXe/xo^'^*  koX  \lidpi8dTr]<;  kul  Ta/3e'X.Xi09  /cat  PaoO/^o?" 
Kal  BeeXre/AO? ''  Kal  '^aix(Talo<;"  6  ypafXfiaTev'i  kul  ol  XolttoI  oi  TOVTOL<i 
crvvraacroixevoL,  oiKOvvTe<;  Be  ev  "Ea/xapeia  Kal  t069  d\Xot<;  roTrotf,  ttjv 
v7roy€ypaix/jt.€vrjv  eTrLcrroXqv  "^^BacriXet  'ApTa^ep^rj  Kvpiay  ol  7rat8e? 
aov  Vaovfjio<i  6  ['ypd<j)(ov]"^  rd  irpoaiTiTnovTa  Kal  ^a/xaalo<;  6  <ypafi- 
/j,arev<i  Kal  oi  iiriXoiTroL  tj}?  /3ovXri<i  avroiv  KpiTai''  ol  ev  kolXt) 
1>vpia  Kal  ^oiviKTj.  ^'  Kol  viiv  yucoarov  ecrrco  k.  t.  i.  The  omissions 
here  are  very  surprising,  and  almost  equally  so  are  the  confla- 
tions or  transpositions.  But  the  phenomena  are  all  capable  of 
explanation. 

The  portions  of  the  Hebrew- Aramaic  text  of  the  passage  which 
are  represented  in  this  Greek  are  the  following:  (1)  Ve7'se  6, 
or  at  all  events  6b,  exactly  reproduced.^"  In  the  beginning  of  the 
verse  the  name  i^niTaJntTlS  was  probably  substituted  at  an  early 
date  for  "*rl~'Tl'r;j<,  and  in  that  case  an  abridged  combination 
with  vs.  7  would  have  been  the  natural  result.  It  is  perhaps  use- 
less to  try  to  determine  whether  the  omission  of  the  half- verse  was 
by  accident  or  by  design,  and  whether  made  first  in  the  Greek  or 
in  the  Hebrew;  but  in  my  own  opinion  it  is  extremely  probable 
that  the  Hebrew  text  had  been  slightly  edited  here;  see  further 
below.  (2)  Verse  7a,  every  word  of  which  is  rendered,  while 
considerable  additions  to  it  have  also  been  made.  These  additions 
will  be  considered  presently.  The  last  clause  of  the  verse,  telling 
how  the  letter  was  "written  in  Aramaic  and  translated"  (into 
Hebrew),  is  not  rendered  at  all.  This  makes  it  certain  that 
vs.  76  was  not  in  the  Hebrew  text  which  lay  before  the  translator. 
It  is  not  the  custom  of  this  version  to  make  omissions ;  the  clause 
in  question  is  interesting  and  important,  and  makes  no  difficulty ; 
it  could  easily  have  been  incorporated  here.  (3)  The  last  word 
{^'ZZZ)  in  verse  8,  represented  by  the  adjective  vTroyeypap^ixeviiv. 

•'■*  Perhaps  originally  Bio-Aa^tos,  as  a  and  «  intorchanse  with  groat  freedom  in  the  tran- 
scripts. For  the  rest,  see  above,  on  the  proper  names.  Of  course  r]  and  i  were  interchange- 
able at  the  volition  of  any  scribe.    It  is  not  likely  that  the  translator  himself  wrote  »)  here. 

5t>See  above,  on  the  proper  names. 

5«The  reading  attested  also  by  Josephus,  BeeAfeVu. 

^1  The  form  written  by  the  translator.    See  above,  on  the  proper  names. 

S'^The  word  yt>a<i>uiv,  of  course,  stood  here  in  the  original  translation,  of.  vs.  21.  In  the 
I  Esdras  fragment  it  had  been  lost  through  careless  transcription;  Josephus  had  it  in  the 
text  before  him.    The  L  text  is  arbitrarily  emended,  as  usual. 

MA  has  (cpoTotoi  (the  last  syllable  derived  from  the  following  oi) ;  B  and  Eth.  omit  the 
word,  though  Syr.  has  it.  The  Egyptian  recension  prefixes  icoi,  which  Jos.  and  the  Syrian 
text  (Latin,  L)  rightly  omit. 

eoThe  word  HI  w'lC  is  rendered  by  iVicttoAtji',  as  also  in  Theodotion'e  translation. 


180  Ezra  Studies 

Of  the  rest  of  the  verse  there  is  no  trace  apparent.  It  was  from 
another  source  that  the  added  names  in  vs.  7  were  derived,  as  will 
be  shown.  When  it  is  further  observed,  that  the  last  words  in  vs. 
la  are  C^S  "1^70  U^ninrnn'n^^  b:?,  while  those  at  the  end  of  the 
omitted  part  of  vs.  8,  standing  in  a  precisely  similar  context,  are 
5<5b7i  S^n'lTirnm^^b,  it  is  plain  that  the  whole  passage,  vss.  76,  8, 
had  been  accidentally  lost  from  the  "I  Esdras"  Hebrew  through 
the  easy  mistake  of  a  copyist.  (4)  Verse  11,  from  by  (the  be- 
ginning of  the  letter)  onward.  That  is,  the  very  passage,  vss.  9, 
10,  llf/a,  which  I  have  already  shown  to  be  an  interpolation  in 
the  Hebrew- Aramaic  text  is  wanting  here.  From  vs.  lla  /3  onward 
the  text  is  like  that  of  the  canonical  recension,  except  that  in  place 
of  the  single  word  llij^  in  vs.  116  the  Greek  has  PaoO/^o?  o  r^pdcjxov 
ra  TTpoaTTLTTTOVTa  Koi  '2aixcralo<;  6  rypafifiaTev<i  kol  ol  eTriXotTroi  rr)? 
the  ^ov\rj<i  avTOiv  Kpirai,  an  expansion  which,  like  the  similar 
one  intranslation  of  vs.  7,  evidently  was  made  in  order  to  restore 
the  two  (or  three)  names  which  had  been  accidentally  lost  from 
the  text. 

What,  then,  is  the  history  of  these  expansions,  in  the  transla- 
tion of  vss.  7  and  11?  As  for  the  latter  verse,  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted,  first  of  all,  that  the  original  reading  was  the  single 
word  ITSi^  ,  as  in  our  massoretic  text.  Now  the  words  inserted 
in  place  of  this  in  the  Greek  I  Esdras  are  almost  an  exact  render- 
ing of  a  part  of  vs.  9,  from  Dim  to  S^n  ;  the  conclusion 
might  therefore  seem  necessary,  that  the  translator  had  vss.  9 
and  10  before  him,  but  omitted  all  but  these  few  words  which  he 
transposed  into  the  latter  part  of  vs.  11.  But  several  considera- 
tions flatly  forbid  this  hypothesis.  In  the  first  place,  it  is 
incredible  that  this  translator  (whose  habits  we  know  well)  should 
omit  all  this  important  material,  if  he  had  it  before  him.  No 
difficulty  of  the  passage  would  have  led  him  to  discard  it,  of 
this  we  can  be  certain.  As  I  have  already  observed  (pp.  83  f., 
see  also  below) ,  he  is  sure  to  stick  closely  to  a  difficult  or  cor- 
rupt text.  Again,  and  more  important  still,  the  word  Jj^^]""!  in  its 
context  in  vss.  9f.,  does  not  mean,  and  could  not  mean,  Kpirai. 
The  juxtaposition  with  the  other  gentilic  names,  and  the  express 
statement  in  vs.  10  that  these  names,  &^^?jb3?  ....  i^^DH,  are 
the  names  of  "peoples,"  leave  no  room  for  doubt;  and  no  trans- 
lator could  ever  have  thought  of  cutting  off  the  first  name  in  the 
list  and  rendering  it  "judges."     The  true  state  of  the  case,  then. 


The  Aramaic  Portioxs  of  Ezra  181 

is  this:  vs.  9  of  our  canonical  text  was  derived  from  the 
I  Esdras  expansion  in  vs.  11  (see  further  below),  not  vice 
versa.  The  reason  why  the  addition  to  vs.  11  was  made  is  so 
obvious  as  to  need  no  argument.  In  the  accidentally  abridged 
text  of  this  recension  there  was  here  no  mention  of  "Rehum 
the  reporter  and  Shimshai  the  scribe,"  that  is,  of  the  two  officials 
who  according  to  vss.  17  and  23  sent  the  letter,  received  answer 
to  it,  and  took  action  accordingly!  It  was  absolutely  necessary, 
in  any  recension,  Aramaic  or  Greek,  that  their  names  should 
appear  in  the  introduction  of  the  letter.  The  insertion  had  been 
made  in  the  Aramaic  text  which  our  translator  followed,  as 
the  Kpirai  shows  beyond  all  question.  The  term  U^^n,  as  a 
general  designation  for  these  less  usual  officials,  was  probably  the 
best  that  the  editor  could  have  chosen.*'^ 

But  the  history  of  the  other  expansion  of  the  I  Esdras  text, 
the  one  in  vs.  15  (  =  vs.  7  of  the  Hebrew) ,  is  essentially  different. 
The  reason  for  making  the  insertion  here  was  the  same,  it  is  true; 
but  in  this  case  we  have  to  do  with  the  expansion  of  the  Greek 
translation,  not  of  the  Semitic  original.  This  is  proved  by  the 
presence  of  the  gloss  BeeXre/Lio?,  which  appears  also  in  vs.  21 
( =  vs.  17  of  the  Aramaic  text) ,  the  source  from  which  the  whole 
addition  was  derived.  Vs.  15  (  =  vs.  7  of  the  Hebrew)  was  very 
troublesome  in  its  abridged  state,  for  it  declared  that  "Bishlam, 
Mithredath,  and  Tabel"  were  the  authors  of  "the  following 
letter,"  rrjv  vTToyeypafifxevrjv  eTri.crToXijv.  A  translator  might  well 
allow  this  to  pass  (especially  since  the  difficulty  had  been  lessened 
by  the  interpolation  made  in  the  Aramaic  of  vs.  11),  and  it  was 
in  fact  left  untouched  by  our  translator;  but  the  contradiction  was 
still  so  great  that  it  could  not  long  be  permitted  to  stand.  Hence 
the  clause,  PaoO/no?  Kal  BeeXre/Lto?  kuI  '^ayLcralo<i  6  <ypa/j,fiaT€v^  Koi 
01  XotTTol  01  TOVTOi^  avvTaacjofxevoL,  oiKOvvre'^  he  ev  "Ea/xapeia  Kal  rot? 
aXXoi<;  r67roi<;,  was  taken  over  bodily  from  vs.  21  and  inserted  in 
vs.  15  after  the  other  names.  As  for  the  BeeXT€^o9,  it  certainly 
did  not  stand  in  the  original  rendering.  The  translator  who  knew 
that  DyD  b"Z  meant  "reporter,"''"  o  <ypd<p(ov  to,  Trpoa-TriTrTovra, 
would  not  also  have  treated  it  as  a  proper  name,  and  his  rendering 
in  vs.  IG  shows  that  he  did  not  so  treat  it.      The  gloss  was  made 

61  As  a  mere  coincidence  with  the  phrase  S'^J"'"  pHmiDI  in  Ezr.  4:11  ("I  Esdras" 
version)  the  occurrence  of  the  phrase  X'^I'^T  HPIIDI .  "and  his  colleagues  the  judges,"  in 
Cowley's  papyrus  B,  1.  6,  is  interesting. 

62Seethe  note  on  the  translation  of  4:7  (8). 


182  EzEA  Studies 

by  some  later  hand  in  vs.  21,  and  was  transferred  thence  to  vs.  15 
with  the  rest  of  the  passage. 

The  Hebrew-Aramaic*^^  text  of  this  passage,  Ezr.  4:6-12,  in 
the  I  Esdras  recension  therefore  read  as  follows: 

rrrr\-2  Db"j3n  rby  nnD  c^s   -b-^   ^^nir'innii^  ^l2^2^'^'■' 
by"      o''i<-2;p  Dbirinn  rmn^  ^t^^  b:?  nDDir  -(■'ni:^  ns-ii  b^n^ 
^j^-^1  j^nsc  ^wi'^i  D^t:  b^n  n^rn  yay'  .sDb-j   j^nb-jjnn^i^ 

This  text  differs  from  the  massoretic  in  the  following  particulars: 
(1)  Vss.  6  and  7  have  been  editorially  combined,  as  already 
stated;  (2)  Vss.  lb  and  8  (except  the  last  word)  have  been  lost 
by  the  accident  of  transcription  mentioned  above;  (3)  Vss.  9,  10, 
llrta,  interpolated  by  a  later  hand  in  our  massoretic  text,  are 
wanting  here ;  (4)  The  editor  has  made  the  (absolutely  necessary) 
insertion  in  vs.  11  very  skilfully. 

The  Greek  translator  reproduced  his  original  verhaiim,  as 
usual;  and  his  rendering  here  has  come  down  to  us  intact  except- 
ing one  particular,  namely,  that  at  a  later  day  some  one  found  it 
necessary  to  harmonize  vs.  15  (  =  vss.  6,  7)  with  its  context  by 
inserting  in  it  a  paraphrase — almost  word  for  word — of  the 
greater  part  of  vs.  21. 

Finally,  as  to  the  verses,  9,  10,  11a a,  which  have  been  interpo- 
lated in  our  massoretic  text.  They  were  written  by  some  one  who 
had  before  him  both  recensions  of  the  Hebrew-Aramaic  (namely, 
the  original  form  and  the  I  Esdras  form),  and  whose  purpose  was 
to  deal  the  Samaritans  a  more  telling  blow.  The  interpolator  saw 
the  opportunity  of  showing  still  farther,  in  the  introduction  to  this 
official  document,  what  a  mixed  rabble  the  Samaritans  really  were, 
by  naming  some  of  the  regions  from  which  Shalmanassar"  had 
brought  them.     That  his  knowledge  of  geography  and  history  was 

«3The  material  out  of  which  the  introductory  verse  was  made  was  undoubtedly  left  just 
as  it  was:  all  Hebrew  with  the  exception  of  the  last  word,  N'QSD  • 

(■♦This  word  certainly  stood  in  the  text.  When  the  copyist's  eye  strayed  from  the  king's 
name  in  vs.  7  to  the  same  name  in  vs.  8,  it  caught  this  preparatory  word  also. 

''"'The  same  form  wliich  occurs  (correctly)  in  both  vss.  17  and  23.  The  translator,  who 
had  just  rendered  the  phrase  in  the  preceding  sentence,  now  varies  the  rendering  on  literary 
grounds,  as  he  frequently  does  elsewhere. 

86 The  D5TI3  was  missing  here,  as  well  as  in  the  canonical  version. 

67  See  above,  on  the  proper  name  "lD3Di{  • 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  183 

not  very  extensive  is  at  least  suggested  by  the  last  four  names  in  the 
list,  "Persians,  people  of  Erech,  Babylonians,  people  of  Susa  (who 
are  Elamites)."  As  for  the  S'b£''t3  ,  they  are  presumably  "people 
of  Tetrapolis,"  as  has  already  been  shown.  But  it  is  most  impor- 
tant of  all  to  observe  that  the  two  first  names  in  the  list,  namely 
i^"""  and  l}<^D(ri)C'iSS ,  are  the  words  used  in  the  documents 
themselves  (as  they  lay  before  the  interpolator)  to  designate 
these  enemies  of  the  Jews;  namely  in  4:11  (I  Esdras  original) ; 
5:6;  6:6,  Whether  the  interpolator  recognized  them  as  official 
titles  or  not,  it  is  at  all  events  certain  that  he  proceeded  to  use 
them  as  gentilic  names,  thus  completing  his  curious  list.  More- 
over, by  the  continuation  in  vs.  10,  "and  the  rest  of  the  peoples," 
etc.,  he  leaves  abundant  room  for  still  other  heathen  ancestors  of 
the  rival  community. 

The  way  in  which  the  interpolation  was  made  is  as  simple  as 
possible.  The  text  used  as  the  basis  was  of  course  the  more  com- 
plete and  (obviously)  more  correct  one.  For  the  beginning  of 
the  insertion,  the  secondary  clause  in  the  I  Esdras  text 
of  vs.  11  (see  above)  was  adopted  verbatim,  and  the  description 
of  these  "associates"  was  then  continued  in  the  manner  just 
described.  The  whole  was  introduced  by  the  word  ""'"X  ;  it  is 
hard  to  imagine  any  other  way  in  which  the  interpolation  could 
have  been  effected  so  easily. 


VI.       THE    TEXT    OF    THE    PASSAGES 

Our  massoretic  text  of  these  Aramaic  passages  in  Ezra  is  very 
well  preserved,  in  the  main.  It  has  retained  some  old  forms 
and  readings  which  had  disappeared  both  from  Theodotion's  text 
and  from  the  original  of  the  "I  Esdras"  recension.  Even  the 
vowel-pointing  is  usually  (but  of  course  not  always)  trustworthy, 
in  these  Aramaic  passages.  For  the  interpretation  of  the  text, 
the  old  Greek  translation,  of  which  we  now  have  only  the  frag- 
ments preserved  in  I  Esdras,  is  very  valuable  because  of  its  great 
age.  It  was  made  about  three  centuries  earlier  than  that  of 
Theodotion  (our  "canonical"  version),  at  a  time  when  many 
words  and  matters  were  still  familiar  which  soon  after  ceased  to 
be  understood. 

On  the  system  of  punctuation  adopted  for  the  text  here  printed, 
see  above,  pp.  118  f. 


184  Ezra  Studies 

SAMARITAN  INTRIGUES  AGAINST  THE  BUILDING  OF  THE 
TEMPLE 

(Ezr.  4:4—6:19) 

(Hebrew) 


•u3^^5 


o  "*  ons  7bT3  TiJT-n  n^sb-a  nyi  '^  o'^S  '^bis 


^  The  manner  in  which  this  phrase  is  frequently  replaced  by 
ri1iS15<n  ""'Cy ,  in  the  Chronicler's  narrative  (see  my  Composition, 
p.  18),  may  show  us  his  idea  of  the  population  of  Palestine  in 
that  day.  The  returning  Jewish  exiles  had  as  their  neighbors 
(aside  from  Phoenicians,  Philistines,  Moabites,  Ammonites,  etc.) 
merely  the  motley  throng  of  heathen  "peoples  of  the  lands"  brought 
in  by  the  Assyrians.  When  he  uses  the  term  he  has  the  Sama- 
ritans in  mind. 

^As  Bertholet  and  others  have  remarked,  these  "counselors" 
are  thought  of  as  at  the  Persian  court.  I  believe  that  the  Chron- 
icler had  in  mind  some  of  the  ministers  of  the  king,  using 
the  term  D"':23?V  exactly  as  he  does  in  I  Chron,  27 :  33,  Ezr.  7 :  14, 
15  (Aramaic),  28;  8:25. 

•^The  purpose  of  the  Chronicler  to  make  his  history  con- 
tinuous, in  this  verse  and  those  which  follow,  is  quite  unmistak- 
able— and  he  would  have  damaged  his  own  work  seriously,  at  this 
point,  if  he  had  not  done  so!  During  the  reign  of  Cyrus,  high 
Persian  officials,  bribed  for  the  purpose,  managed  to  stop  the 
building  of  the  temple.  Then  followed,  immediaielu,  the  reign  of 
Xerxes,  at  the  very  "beginning"  of  which  Bishlam  and  his  asso- 
ciates wrote  their  effective  accusation. 

^  This  clause  is  one  of  the  remaining  traces  of  the  redactional 
process  througli  which  our  book  of  Ezra  has  passed.  When  the 
Story  of  the  Three  Youths  was  interpolated  and  the  letters  4:  6- 
24  (n.  h.)  were  transposed,  the  interpolator  who  made  the  new 
edition  left  the  two  (now  consecutive)  verses  4:5  and  5:1  exactly 
as  they  were.  But  the  necessity  of  putting  some  bridge  across  this 
gap  was  imperative,  and  our  two  surviving  texts  contain  each  a 
clause  written  for  this  purpose;  namely,  the  one  before  us,  and 
the  words  "and  they  were  hindered  from  building  until  the  second 
year  of  the  reign  of  Darius"  (incorrectly  rendered  by  the  Greek 
translator)  in  I  Esdras  5:70  (73).  When  the  makers  of  our 
canonical  edition  cut  out  the  Story  and  restored  the  letters  to  their 
original  place,  they  of  course  left  4 :  5  in  its  expanded  form. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  185 

©ob-ir^i  rii^n-  "Ti^  by  n:t:ir  'vni:5  •^^^•i'^  ^^^^^ 

nb'iri^  b>'  s-r:  ^<-3^5  ^^r-  i^-ic  ^•z•2z^  nvxz  b'z.  D^r?' 
xnED  ■'irtSTpi  Dri2  bya  Dinn  I'^-s'j  o'"i<"^p  5<jb"^  j^ri'iToirri'^yib 
S'^bnn    pS^iDns   "St^DiB   S"'bsn-j   s^.^nDnsKn   "S"*:^!   ."jinnirD   ^sri 

*See  above,  on  the  proper  names. 

^A  genuine  Aramaic  word,  not  a  loan-word. 

s  On  the  orthography  of  this  name  see  above,  the  proper  names. 

*•  I  have  pointed  this  in  the  Hebrew  manner,  since  it  now  stands 
in  a  Hebrew  verse,  as  it  originally  stood.  But  it  may  well  be  that 
these  Aramaic  titles,  ^"S^  b^n  and  J^'^SC  were  retained  by  the 
Chronicler  in  their  official  Aramaic  form. 

'  See  above,  on  the  proper  names,  ''  See  note  h. 

'  The  word  D^TJ^J^  ,  which  stands  here  in  MT,  is  a  later  addi- 
tion intended  to  give  warning  (as  in  Dan.  2:4)  that  the  following 
passage  is  Aramaic. 

■"The  Brown-Driver-Briggs  Lexicon  says,  "derivation  uncer- 
tain.'' But  where  is  the  possibility  of  any  uncertainty,  in  view  of 
j^^^ ,  XITI ,  D^bD ,  Q3'"n"2 ,  etc.,  the  Assyrian  enclitic  -ma,  and 
.other  similar  formations?  I  would  add  to  the  list  of  these  ma- 
forms  >caa_D,  "person"  or  "face"  (Guidi,  I seUe  dormieuti,  p.  19, 
1.  l)  =  [d^^K(ii)v  +  ma.  I  believe  that  we  have  the  original  7x•o/^ 
fully  naturalized,  in  the  Esmun'azar  inscription,  11.  4,  20,  p 
F1&5  '•'2  ,  "whosorivr  thou  art;"  cf.  the  Tabnit  inscription,  1.  3,  and 
the  two  Nerab  inscriptions,  I,  1.  5  and  II,  1.  8. 

"  On  the  peculiar  history  of  this  word  and  the  one  which  fol- 
lows it,  see  above,  pp.  180  f.,  183. 

°  The  i<  which  stands  at  the  beginning  of  this  word  in  MT  is 
the  result  of  a  copyist's  mistake;  see  above,  p.  170. 

P  Probably  S' j"ii5 ,  as  suggested  above  ? 

"  MT  U^l]"" .  This  explanatory  clause  is  not  necessarily  the 
work  of  a  later  hand;  the  original  narrator  himself  occasionally 
wishes  to  explain  a  word  or  a  phrase.  Cf.  Wright's  Joslnui  flie 
Stylite,  9,  10,  which  is  an  exact  parallel. 

■"MT  ■'SUCi^  ;  see. above,  on  the  pro[)er  names. 


Aramaic 
Writer 


186  Ezra  Studies 

^-  sniax  pTSns  n:T'  o'n-inD  "iny  nsiri  ■i-i'affi  ^n  ^rr^npn  inn  nnim 

;inx  ^D^b?  -jnib  -p  ^pbc  ^i^^^^n^r;-'  ^i  .^jb'jb  "•&5inb  ry"^' 

'  Should  this  be  pronounced  tl^^p  ?  It  is  at  all  events  x>lural, 
i.  e.,  the  collective  noun  regularly  used  in  Syriac,  jl^ojs .  It 
cannot  possibly  be  the  undetermined  singular  here  (as  in  vs. 
15,  J!<"'^p)  ,  and  the  determined  singular,  U^tl^^p ,  occurs  seven 
times  over  in  this  chapter.  "|'"TJ'i2J  here  is  the  province  of  Sama- 
ria; moreover,  this  whole  phrase  is  a  direct  quotation  of  the  twice 
occurring  phrase  ""H^JIZJ  "'^^Q  [DjniTVI,  in  the  all-important 
"Samaritan  passage"  II  Kings  17:21,  26.  Observe  that  even 
Theodotion  and  Jerome  render-  by  the  plural:  iv  iroXeaiv  r?}? 
'Eonopfov,  in  civifatihus  Samariae. 

'  MT  adds  nD^DI ,  evidently  derived  by  a  copyist's  mistake  from 
the  following  verse. 

"  Since  the  Db'iJ  is  missing  in  both  MT  and  I  Esdras,  I  have 
not  ventured  to  insert  it,  though  it  seems  to  me  most  likely  that  it 
was  in  the  original  text.  It  is  probably  merely  an  accidental 
coincidence  that  the  same  word  has  disappeared  from  7 :  12,  where 
it  certainly  once  stood. 

''My  explanation  of  this  word  as  the  equivalent  of  Jou  Lot  , 
Joiirn.  Bib.  Lit.,  1897,  pp.  166  ff.,  has  been  proved  correct  by  the 
Egyptian  papyri.  In  the  letter  published  by  Sachau,  Drei  aram. 
Pajjyrusurkiinden,  I,  4,  II,  2,  the  word  occurs  in  exactly  this 
usage,  while  the  full  form  Tj^lD  is  found  in  the  papyri  published 
by  Cowley. 

"^In  the  Egyptian  papyri,  this  form  is  written  everywhere  TTiTT , 
not  as  in  Ezra  and  Daniel. 

""  This  seems  the  most  probable  way  of  connecting  this  word, 
especially  in  view  of  the  absence  of  any  demonstrative  pronoun 
after  it. 

yMT  has  lbbja;5<  ^^TlTI,  and  would  transpose  the  ^5  to  the  pre- 
ceding word,  leaving  the  verb  in  the  perfect  tense.  It  is  plain 
from  vs.  13,  however,  that  the  perfect  cannot  have  been  intended. 
I  believe  that  this  is  one  of  the  many  cases  in  which  initial  "^  and 
5<  interchange  phonetically,  and  that  the  form  is  really  imperf. 
third  person  plural.      Cf.  Dalman,  (Tra))nii.\  p.  252,  and  the  well- 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  187 

^^Db-^  "cnsi^i  ^'^^nr  sb  ^-jbrn  ibn  n-r;  .-^bbrn-i:^  5<"nra:i 
5<Db:^  ni^^i  ,x:-b:2  5<brn  nb'^  ^"i  bnp  ^bs  73 '*     o'punn 

known  state  of  the  case  in  classical  Syriac.  This  imperfect,  like 
the  one  which  follows  it,  doubtless  ended  in  n. 

'The  word  should  be  written  ^'UT'r  (  =  !lt:r:^),  without  the  ^. 
It  is  a  liapliel  imperfect  from  the  root  I2i:n,  corresponding  to  the 
Arabic  in~-  (not  iai>),  and  with  exactly  the  same  meaning,  "lay." 
The  I  Esdras  translation,  viro^dWovrai,  is  not  a  bad  rendering. 
The/7-s/  stem  of  the  Arabic  verb  is  used  both  transitively  ("lay") 
and  intransitively  ("come  down").  The /o»r///  stem  also  is  used 
with  the  meaning  "put  down,  lay,"  just  as  the  corresponding  form, 
the  hapli'cl,  is  used  here  in  Aramaic.  The  verb  is  common  in 
Arabic,  but  has  not  thus  far  been  found  elsewhere  in  the  cognate 
languages. 

^On  these  three  words  see  above,  the  section  dealing  with  the 
foreign  words. 

^The  Greek  eV/^ecrt?;   see  above,  on  the  foreign  words.     MT 

"^The  final  D  in  MT  is  probably  a  mere  copyist's  error  for  ". 
We  have  no  other  evidence  of  an  Aramaic  plur.  in  -Im.  This  is 
not  a  Hebraism. 

'^This  hapWel  has  two  uses:  the  one  causative,  as  in  vss.  15, 
22;  the  other  signifying  to  come  into  the  condition  (viz.,  of 
deterioration),  as  this  stem  is  so  frequently  used  in  Semitic.  Cf. 
the  two  uses  of  rb::",  Dan.  3:30  and  6:29.  The  fern,  form  here 
because  of  the  (Greek)  fem.  noun;    see  above. 

^It  is  often  said  (e.  g.,  by  Marti,  Gramm.,  p.  98;  Strack, 
Grannn.,  p.  56;  Brown-Driver-Briggs,  Lexicon)  that  this  is 
wrongly  divided  and  pointed,  and  that  the  form  should  be  b^pblD  • 
But  this  is  not  true ;  the  massoretes  have  divided  and  pointed  cor- 
rectly. The  shifting  of  the  vowel  is  very  natural,  and  has  many 
analogies;  and  as  for  the  division,  it  is  not  a  whit  more  remark- 
able than  in  b'J: ,  Eccles.  8:17,  cf.  Jonah  1:7,  8;  or  b"'!  (as 
a  separate  word)  in  the  Palmyrene  inscriptions;  or  than  in 
&Lui!  Joe,  for  Sl|  wx  (Noldeke,  Delectus  vet.  carni.  anib..  10,  4; 
Goldziher,  AhlKuidJ.  ziir  (tr<ih.  FIn'loI.,  II,  p.  xiv).  These  are 
local  and  temporary  habits  of  orthogra})hy. 


188  Ezra  Studies 

^1"    0,«rbi2b  '5<]yiim  ii.:rb'^  HjT  by*  .atjir-ib  job  -j^-^^5  5<b 

'^^^n-j-si  ,-rT2i  "i^Db-;  npT:r;/::i  i<iy2  t^^^p  ^i  sn^np  ^i 
©nnnnn    -t   sn^^p  hdt  by    ;^:^bj  n-^r  p  wj3  yi^y 

o-jb  ^ns  55b  5<^n:  ^n?n  pbn  nsi  bnpb  ."^bb^n-i;^ 
,  t<n3c  ^Tr:rj;i  .  D;S''t:  b;5?2  mnn  bj?  :>55b7j  nbii: '^i^/jjns'' 

orjip  ^ip  °-j:-i3-j  j^rb:?  -^nnb'i  ^n  sD^imrD""  :"n;:;-V' 

j<7jbr  n-^r  "2  -p  i<n^^p  n  ^n^oini  ^->pni  ,D3?t:  D^ir  'spv 

■(•'SbT^V"  ©na  Tuyn-j  n^nn-jij^i  itji  ,n5<TSDWi  pb^j  by 
ibn  nT/Ji  .n^nD  ^ny  bDn  -,"1:^^12:1  .nbir^n^  by  iin  "rpn 
;"|byi  ^'^^?  sbmb  oyt:  ^-j^ir  -yD-'  ©-pnb  nn^np  -ibm 
iin  -j^n^nn--  ©Dirn"_  i^^jyi:  -sp  ly  ,i<Dnnn  j^b  "^t  «n^^pi 
©■f^b7j  '^npj-nb  j^b^n  «;;ir";  n-^b  ;-;t  by  nnypb  ^bii: 
Dip  ^"ip  s^b^j  j^nirirnnn^^  ^t  j^difi'iT?  -j-j^^s  n  -7^  .--li^-' 
.i!i,^r\rr  by  Db'::^n^b  ^b^nin  ^bT«  .-pnniDDi  i^-sp  ^'^•2^^  n^rn 

*^The  epistolary  perfect;  "we  hereby  send  and  make  known." 

^MT  ■^pn"' ,  but  this  is  shown  to  be  wrong  by  the  suffix  at  the 
end  of  the  clause.  The  form  adopted  (which  might  be  either 
indicative  or  jussive)  is  better  than  "p"ipn^  . 

•"pijl  "^SC,  "record-book,"  cf.  Mai,  3:16,  is  virtually  a  com- 
pound word  (Marti,  Gramm.,  §117;  Kautzsch,  Hehr.  Gramm., 
§124,  2),  and  this  is  its  plural,  "record-books."  So  the  old 
Greek  translator  and  Jerome,  rightly.  Other  plur.  compounds  of 
this  same  sort  in  5:17;  6:1. 

'Apparently  an  example  of  initial  i5<  replacing  the  more  original 
n .     See  above,  on  the  language  of  these  documents, 

''Probably  a  naturalization  of  the  Greek  (f)de'Yixa;    see  above. 

'The  suffix  by  no  means  to  be  altered  to  the  second  person; 
see  the  note  on  6:6. 

■"Not  the  city,  but  the  province. 

"This  same  form,  and  similarly  used,  in  the  letter  published  by 
Sachau,  Drei  ar(i)ii.  Pdpyrusurlainden,  II,  1.  2;  cf.  I,  1.  4. 

"Circumstantial  accusative  of  the  passive  participle. 

PCf.  the  Arabic  idiom,  Wright,  Gramm.,  II,  27 B,  301C. 

''See  above,  on  the  Aramaic  of  these  documents. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  189 

"1  snbs  n^-  m-n:?  nbpn  "fisn-'  ©b^n  s^'^ii^n  ta  ^bipni 
o  c^3  -b-^  -irn-  n^^b-^b  --n^n  nri  i:;  i<bt:n  nim  .  ob-i^n^n 

^•^1)  7isn'-'     o-pn^b2?  b^nir^  nbs^  nm  .nb'ajii^zi  i^rro,  ^i 

snbs  n^2  N:npb  "r"^'j;i  'P^^v  ^n  :?v^r;;i  bsi^nbs-::'  ^z  bzn^ 

©■^-b  -nyr^  i^rib^i  ^i  ^^"^5^zD  -irr^yi  ;nb-:;in-n  ^i 

^■x:nb  n;i  xn—  ,□:•::  obb  nir  "2  :-^Dnb  -fT^i^  -pi  .-p-njzii 
r\r'2'z  "^ss  "^  :Dnb  ^ybs-i  -n;*  ©nbbj-^r'b  n:i  ^s:tj:si 
,sn^n^  ^zir  b:?  n'ln  chnbx  73'" v    0"r:z  Nr:n  nn  ^i  s^^z:» 


"^The  manner  of  the  connection  here  is  strong  added  evidence 
that  4:2-1:  was  not  written  by  the  Chronicler,  bnt  by  the  author  of 
4:23  and  5:1  ff . ;  see  above. 

*So  written  {l-etJb)  both  here  and  6:14,  but  probably  already 
pronounced    J^'iZI . 

'The  superiority  of  this  reading  would  be  obvious  enough  even 
if  we  did  not  have  Theodotion's  7rpo(f)i)TeLav,  showing  that  the 
word  actually  stood  in  his  text.     Cf.  also  6:14. 

"This,  of  course,  does  not  imply  that  no  building  had  been 
done  before!  This  is  the  characteristic  redundant  use  of  the 
Aramaic  verb  "begin;"  see  above,  p.  51,  note  d. 

"The  Babylonian  name  Tattmmu,  see  above. 

''MT  very  likely  corrupt;  see  above,  on  the  proper  names. 

""This,  like  most  of  the  other  so-called  "Hebraisms"  in  Ezra 
and  Daniel,  is  pure  Aramaic.  On  the  whole  question  see  now 
Herbert  H.  Powell,  The  Snj)2Josed  Hebraisms  in  ....  Biblical 
Aramaic,  Berkeley,  Cal.,  1907. 

y Inasmuch  as  this  same  form  occurs  twice  in  the  Hadad  in- 
scription, 11.  13,  14,  it  is,  of  course,  to  be  retained.  The  pointing 
of  the  massoretes  is  probably  correct.  Apparently  a  variation  of 
SDZ'-b  ,  with  compensatory  doubling  of  the  Z  . 

^See  above,  on  the  foreign  words.  Both  the  old  Greek  transla- 
tor and  Theodotion  had   J<n;,j^   before  them  here.      Point  possibly 

"  ^MT  has  for  these  two  words  U^LI^JS  ^'I'l'D  "flS  .  The  second 
and  third  of  these  were  derived  by  a  copyist's  mistake  from  the 
similar  passage  in  vs.  9;  it  was  then  necessary  to  change  the  ~|i^ 
to  ■■'IS.      With  the  restored  text  cf.  the  beginning  of  vs.  10. 


190  Ezra  Studies 

on:T  bs? 
.^DTin^n-ii  n^riD   ^n:?   nns  ^3nn  nbji:  ^i  sn"njj^_  p-^ns' 
5<-^:<n3'    o^^Db-2  "^r^T  b:?  .n^n:  "^nyn  n  ^i<^csnE5<  'nnp^ 

:W3n  3-nD  Mjipi  rn^h^  ^rb'j: 
«jbT^<  ^1  ,5j<^'b-2b  iX}rib  Ti^'    ©i^bb  j^^^b-oj  .ssb-j  'j^vmb 
y^^i  .bb3  pi^  ^pi^P  ^^ni  .^^nn  i<nb^5  n^zb  i<nrTj  'n^n^b 

nbb  Dir  '^-j'j    :Dnb  xin^^s  s^jp  ."(b^^  x^nirb  j^DbiJ;"^:  7i5<' 

-y;V'  ^©nbb^-^b    tijI   'j^jn-i^ii    'n^Dnpb    nn   i<n^n    .nyt: 
^-  j^^nn:  'D'i  n^nD3   ^i  ,-w:'ni-b    nnb   5<;bi<-j:   Dnnn^ri 


•^"News,"  as  in  the  title  DPt:  b2?n . 

"=80  also  in  the  Egyptian  papyri,  the  forms  "jHi^  and  inn 
(Cowley,  op.  cit.). 

^The  singular  suffix,  as  in  4:6  (7)  ;  a  merely  literary  variation 
from  the  more  frequent  plural.  The  suffix  refers  to  the  nearer 
one  of  the  two  names. 

^  Aramaic  adaptation  of  the  Greek  eirapxo^ ;  see  above.  MT 
S"'SC"i2i^ .  Perhaps  the  ID  and  D  were  actually  transposed  in  the 
Jewish  pronunciation  of  the  word. 

'^This  word,  "Judea,"  occurs  in  the  letter  from  the  Jews  of 
Elephantine,  408  b.  c,  published  by  Sachau,  I,  1. 

^A  word  of  unknown  origin;  see  above. 

^  It  is  safest  to  retain  this  Jewish  pointing,  "2  instead  of  "J , 
until  we  know  more  about  it. 

'This  form  should  not  be  "emended"  away,  especially  since 
precisely  similar  forms  are  found  in  the  Palestinian  Talmud  and 
the  Jerusalem  Targums  (Dalman,  Gramm.~,  340,  349).  So  also 
in  biblical  Hebrew,  and  especially  when  b  is  joined  to  the  infin- 
itive, Gesen.-Kautzsch,  §45,  d,  e.  In  Ezr.  7:9,  indeed,  we  seem 
to  have  an  Aramaizing  infin.  of  just  this  sort,  nb>"J  (Gesen.- 
Kautzsch,  I.  c).  These  isolated  occurrences  are  too  valuable  to 
be  thrown  away. 

''  See  the  note  on  this  word  in  vs.  3. 

'This  is  correct  as  it  stands. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  191 

n:z  j^in  -i  sn^-  7:21  ;xyn.si  «rj"i  rrbs  ^1  ^-Ii^ny  i:2n 
orrbbs'ii  ^r;;n  in  bi<n'u:^b  -b'ji  .■^!;•'3^23  ",^DaJ  nn  n-;-p_"j 
Tn  Tjn  nn^  ^x^-j-i  r^bxb  ^^rnnnx  ^i^-in  n  ^p  °-)nb'- 
^b-"n  n^ayi  nnno  n;i  nn^ni  .5<^nc5  bnn  -|b:j  "n^in^is 
SDb-^  "jjTiD  ,bnn  ^i  N5b*j  -iniDb  nin  nDizin  nnn"''     ©"bnnb 

□b-ihTn  n  i^brn  yz  ps-n  n:mDi2]  ^i  ,sec51  rarn  'i 
&<brr;  7::  j^Db-j  ittid  rjn  psDn  .bnz  ■'i  i^hz^rib  rzn  bn%ni 
:pib  T^j^V'    ©n-j-j:  nns  n  .'np-j:  ^n^n-^-db  ^n^n^  .bnn  ^i 


""There  is  no  Hebraism  here.  As  for  the  "un-Aramaic"  pro- 
nunciation with  ";  instead  of  "1 ,  is  not  this  what  we  see  preserved 
in  the  modern  name  of  the  important  town  Rdseyd,  ^"^'X^"^ ,  at 
the  northern  foot  of  Hermon  ?  (We  seem  to  have  similar  survivals 
of  this  Aram.  plur.  ending  in  the  names  of  the  towns  Hasbeyd, 
&<^n"jn ,  west  of  Hermon,  and  Ddveyd,  ^'^'y^ ,  just  south  of  Da- 
mascus. I  do  not  know  that  this  explanation  of  them  has  ever 
been  given  before.) 

"This  same  form  (without  ^5)  in  a  papyrus  record  from  Ele- 
phantine; Sachau,  op.  cit.,  p.  41.  The  thoroughgoing  Hebraism 
T-i^b  occurs  some  fifteen  times  in  the  papyri  published  by  Sayce 
and  Cowley. 

°  This  also,  similarly  used,  in  the  Egyptian  papyri. 

PThe  incorrect  form  of  the  name  generally  used  by  the  Jews 
in  the  Greek  period.     Also  vs.  14  and  6:5. 

''Babylonia,  not  Babylon. 

"■  See  above,  on  vs.  3. 

^  See  above,  on  the  proper  names. 

'  The  comments  which  have  been  made  in  recent  years  on  the 
text  of  this  last  clause  are  curious.  As  though  ITZ'ii  '^'I'Zi.'ii'^ , 
"Sheshbazzar  by  name,"  were  not  faultless  Aramaic!  Marti, 
in  the  note  appended  to  his  text,  suggests  that  Jl'-oJ  may  be  a 
gloss  (!!).  Guthe,  Polychi'ome  Bible,  decides  that  the  word  is 
the  result  of  dittography  (!)  of  the  ri-'lT  at  the  end  of  the  verse; 
so  also  Bertholet,  Comm.     And  so  on. 

"Not  a  Hebraism,  as  has  lonor  been  known  from  the  old  Ara- 


192  EzEA  Studies 

0 "  Db'^'  i<bi  J<;nn-;  ■:^-d  -i:.")  --ij^  "21  ;  nb-iin-z  ^-  ^^nb^^  n-2  ^i 
^[^1  i^l'^sc]  ^1  ^'u^-Tj.-   n^nn  n^^nn^  ,nt2  ^^b'2  by  -n  -^pV 

0  i^rby  nb  oj-;  n:i  by  idb-2  n^yni  ^  Db  a;in^n  -q  xnbs  n^n  iJ^jnpb 
5<^-isc  ^1  ''&5^7D3  n^nn  ^np^i  .D^tj  oir  j^jb'i  -jirn-  -^^isn  6' 
^y22  ^1  srn^nn  jsn-^nsn  nsn  oirn '    ©  bnzn  nisn  -j^nnn^^ 

:nyi:  Qir  «sb7j  -^m-  .i^Db:^  irnirib  mn  nrain"'  .'nrnr-i' 

p^5  n  TDniD'  0r,^n"j:  pJ^^  n^ns  .yn-o:  7:a^5  n-^^n  '.-^bnic^j 
0nn-nn  t^sb^j  n^n  -,■::  xnpsDi  .-^nnn  ys;  -n  -m:i  .^^nbn  bb: 

maic  inscriptions.  In  Jewish  Aramaic  also  in  Jer.  10: 11  and  often 
in  the  Assuan  papyri. 

^This  same  phrase  used  in  speaking  of  the  Egyptian  temple; 
Sachau,  oj).  cit,  p.  11. 

"^  Meyer,  Entstehung,  p.  44,  thinks  that  the  meaning  of  Zirr 
iJ<''12J5<  is  "problematisch"! 

''  Not  passive,  but  the  perf .  pe'aZ  of  the  stative  verb. 

y  Plural,  "store-AoNsesy"  see  the  note  on  4:  15. 

^  The  emendation,  and  the  reason  for  the  loss  of  the  words  from 
the  text,  are  alike  obvious. 

^Here  again,  bZiJ,  is  the  country,  "Babylonia." 

^  The  transposition  is  necessary,  not  merely  for  the  sake  of 
agreement  with  5:17  (as  emended),  but  in  order  to  make  sense. 

"=  Marti,  Gramm.,  p.  45*:  "i^n^TJ  ^T;:n  ^1  fehlt  in  LXX." 
What  does  he  mean  by  this? 

'^"pjT  (the  older  form)  similarly  used  in  the  Elephantine 
papyrus;  Sachau,  pp.  40  f. 

^MT  ^ni2!!< .  But  many  scholars  since  Ball  [Variorum  Apo- 
crypha, 1892,  p.  16)  have  seen  that  the  word  for  "fire-offering" 
originally  stood  here,  as  also  I  Esdras  translates.  The  form 
adopted  (emphat.  plur.  written  with  H)  is  the  most  likely  one. 

'^This  is  not  a  po'al,  but  a  regularly  formed  sapliel  from  the 
root  bn"! ,  Heb.  b^^ ,  Assyr.  abdlu,  "bring."  Cf.  the  use  of  the 
hipKil  b''3in ,  in  speaking  of  bringing  offerings  to  Yahw6; 
Ps.  68:30;  76:12;  Zeph.  8:10. 

^MT  mn,   "new." 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  11>3 


^1  "'i^K'D^B^  '■-inn'ir*!  .^^Tiz^n-i  ,n^-;  "a:?  nrs  "nn  -yD' 
i5rib5<  n^n  m^n^b  ^pn-i"   ©n^n  "i  i^n  "p""^  .n"^n:  ^:"n 


^The  construcfio  ad  sensiim,  "and  let  //  (all)  come."  Cf.  the 
similar  change  of  number  in  vs.  9,  and  the  change  of  gender  at 
the  end  of  5:8. 

'  MT  nnni ,  but  the  second  person  is  out  of  the  question  here. 
Kead  the  hoph'al  imperf.  masc.  (cf.  Dan.  5:20),  which  is  gra- 
phically almost  the  exact  equivalent  of  the  form  in  MT. 

''On  the  lacuna  here,  see  above,  p.  159.  It  is  plain  that  at  a 
very  early  date  a  passage  of  some  length  was  accidentally  dropped; 
probably  because  it  resembled  the  preceding,  and  ended  with  the 

words  srib5<  n^n. 

'It  is  common  to  "emend"  this  suffix  to  that  of  the  second 
person,  but  no  such  alteration  is  required.  When  the  persons 
directly  addressed  are  not  actually  present,  the  Semitic  often 
refers  to  them  at  the  outset,  in  the  formal  address  itself,  with  the 
third  person,  as  here  and  in  4:17.  Thus,  for  example,  the  D|D 
in  Micah  1:2;  the  I^T  ^JJI  l^f  b  etc.  of  the  Koran;  and 
many  other  instances. 

"■  See  the  note  on  5 :  6. 

"  The  text  of  this  verse  is  probably  correct  as  it  stands  in  MT, 
though  the  clauses  are  wrongly  divided  there.  In  this  word  "^air^^  , 
the  b  is  used  exactly  as  it  is  in  bsb^ ,  7 :  28 ;  i.  e.,  in  order  to 
show  how  the  construction  is  continued.  In  this  instance,  it 
shows  that  the  noun  is  the  direct  object  of  the  preceding  verb, 
not  the  subject  of  the  following  verb,  as  it  would  otherwise  pretty 
certainly  be  regarded.  Jerome  understood  the  verse  as  I  have 
punctuated  it.  Marti,  Gramm.,  and  Bertholet,  Conim.,  say  that 
"LXX"  omits  ari^n"  nns,  which  is  not  true;  Kittel,  Bibl 
i?e?)r.,  says  that  I  Esdr.  "inserts"  bnn^T  5^r;b&<  12^b  ,  which  also 
is  not  true.  Guthe's  restoration  of  the  text  here  {Polychrome 
Bible)  is  a  marvel. 


194  Ezra  Studies 

u^npsp  «D^BC5ji  mn:  ^ny  nTp  ^i  adb-2  "^z^pi^  .ji  «nb&5  n^n 
o5n^  ,p]ntjn  n^v  ©nb^nb  &^b  ^  ."jbi^  i<^-^n:b  j^nn^n^^  ^5inn 
TaXTflD  -ntj^n  n-an  nb^  "ji-l::!!  -x^'qtu  nbsb  -jibyb  ■-■i^n^GXi  -i^iD-ii  ■j-'iin 
■jinb  ^T'o  Q^bir  sb  ^-  ni^n  m^  onb  ^nn^nia  snnb  DbTrnnin  in  s^:np 
D^ir  ^3"JV'  ©'■'nism  SDbia  ^::nb  i^lsiaT  -s^-a©  nbxb  i^nin^D  "i-'nnpna 
nn^n  "2  y5{  ncDri";  tnDi  ^^-jr^ns  ^^;":;^^  ^i  "ii;;j<  bD  ^"i  ^D^n 
^n  j^nbi^y-  ©nn  b:5?  ."nn3?n^  ^b^D  nn^ni  .^nib:?  ^5"'-i^"  ""P^i 
n"2  "Tib^Mb  fiT  nbir^  n  oy^  ^b7j  bD  ^^3'j"  ni2n  n:j"^r'  -s-o: 

°  An  explicative  1,  meaning  "even"  or  "namely,"  was  certainly 
used  to  a  considerable  extent  in  the  Aramaic  of  this  period.  See  vs. 
9,  ""Dn^,  and  also  my  notes  on  I  Esdr.  3:1,  0  (above,  p.  50). 

^Generally  regarded  as  plnr.  of  a  supposed  fern,  noun  Jj^nri'iTi, 
"need;"  so  Noldeke  in  Kautzsch,  Gram,  des  bibl.  Aram.,  p.  175. 
It  seems  to  me  more  probable  that  it  is  the  fem.  plur.  of  the  pe^al 
participle,  with  the  meaning  "needful."  The  same  form,  in  just 
this  use,  is  common  in  Syriac ;  and  the  adjective,  or  its  equivalent, 
is  intrinsically  much  more  probable  here  than  a  noun.  The  con- 
struction according  to  the  sense,  "whatever  (things)  are 
needful,"  is  certainly  possible,  especially  for  such  a  slovenly  writer 
as  this  one;  and  the  fem.  is  the  gender  to  be  expected.  MT 
points  'n  ,  just  as  it  points  Dp'J  for  ntp'J ,  "H^  for  y~r  ,  T'^IR 
for  ^mjj^ ,  2Tp  for  IDD  ,  and  many  others ;  observe  especially 
that  this  very  participle  is  pointed  ■iTllIJn  in  Dan.  3:16, 
according  to  excellent  testimony.  And  this  all  undoubtedly  rep- 
resents an  actual  (local  or  late)  pronunciation. 

''The  "explicative"  1  again;  see  the  note  on  vs.  8.  For  this 
use  of  ^Dn,  cf.  II  Chron.  35:7. 

■-Cf.  7:17,  etc. 

*For  the  change  of  gender  and  number,  "let  //  (all)  be  given," 
cf.  vs.  5,  and  the  note  there. 

'For  the  reasons  for  ascribing  these  two  verses  to  the  Chroni- 
cler, see  Comp.,  p.  10. 

"Cf.  Dan.  2:5;  3:29,  and  see  above,  pp.  84  f. 

''Both  '^"2  and  bzH  ,  used  as  in  this  verse,  in  the  Elephantine 
papyrus,  ed.  Sachau,  I,  1.  14. 

^"MT  inserts  n'jirnb  before  this  word;  plainly  the  lapsus 
calami  of  a  scribe  who  remembered  what  he  had  just  written  in 
vs.  11. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  195 

^:7innn-i  .rrrr.  ^n:?  nrs  ^:nn  7-;i<" 


^?p^  ^ 

■pnnizDi 

;-  sj^'nr 

r  -n'^-V* 

:  ^bbs'jji 

i:z^   -rw 

«^:nD  bj^^i-  "-  ^myV"   (D^^sb*^  -jjrm  n^isb-^b  nip  n:-:;  ^^^-n 

•■^See  the  note  on  5:1. 

^Not  "a  Hebraism"  (Marti).  Both  forms  of  the  construct 
were  in  common  use  in  the  period  from  which  our  biblical  Aramaic 
dates.  So  Obil  and  Cb^ ,  etc.  The  massoretic  distinction  between 
the  "decree"  of  God  and  the  "decree"  of  the  friendly  kings  is 
natural  enough. 

^An  addition  carelessly  made  by  some  later  hand. 

^The  orthography  with  !J^  may  well  be  ancient;  it  is  safest  to 
retain  it.  As  for  the  meaning,  there  is  not  the  least  room  for 
doubt,  in  view  of  the  common  use  of  ''^"'aJ  in  later  Jewish  Aramaic, 
to  mean  "be  finished,"  "come  to  an  end."  Merely  an 
example  of  the  stative  sapliel  ( HT"' oi ,  "escape,"  furnishes 
another  example);  cf.  the  note  (d)  on  4:13,  above.  So  under- 
stood in  I  Esdr.  7:5,  crvveTeXeaOr]  6  olico<i.  To  "emend"  to  the 
plural  would  be  a  very  foolish  proceeding. 

•"The  "^?fe/<//y-third"  day  of  the  month,  as  is  made  nearly  cer- 
tain by  I  Esdras  and  Josephus  (xi,  4,  7).  The  "twenty"  might 
easily  fall  out  by  accident;  it  would  hardly  have  been  added. 
The  following  month,  Nisan,  was  the  natural  one  to  select  for  the 
first  complete  restoration  of  the  cultus,  cf.  Exod.  40:17  fP. 
This  was  the  first  month  of  the  seventh  year  of  Darius.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Chronicler  (who  always  provides  an  exact  date),  after 
the  people  had  finished  building  they  still  had  a  week  left  for  the 
celebration,  before  the  beginning  of  the  new  year. 

'According  to  Meyer,  Entstehung,  54,  i<^n  "'1  is  "offenbar 
verstiimmelt,"  and  subsequent  commentators  have  echoed  this. 
As  for  the  pronoun,  the  fem.  is  quite  as  natural  as  the  masc, 
according  to  all  Semitic  usage,  and  undoubtedly  stood  here  origi- 
nally. And  as  for  the  connection:  '' iiamcli/,  of  the  sixth  year," 
there  is  not  the  least  reason  to  object  to  it ;  nor  would  there  be, 
even  if  the  Chronicler  were  not  its  author.  The  ellipsis  is  a 
natural  one. 


196  Ezra  Studies 

3'-2^s  7n^5<  r'm-2  -ps-  .n5<"2  "nin  n;T  J^nb^^  n^n  n3:r;b 
^d-'j:'  7"jb  .niry  ^^n  bi<n^^  bs  b>'  x^^nb  ■■■tij'  ^72:2^  .ns;-j 
b3?  ,-pr;np^bn7jn  j^^ibi  ,-pnniibsn  i<^:n5  ^:::''pr;V^  ebi^^^- 
x'l^^n'i]  .n-jj-j  ^sc'  nnsp  .nbir'n^n  ^i  J^nbx  "[n^z]  m^n:? 

©[•^^-^M  :;'^nb 

(Hebrew)  © -r::i<^n  'iJinb  n'lry  ron^sn  ncsn   ni<   nbi:"   ^:n  vjjrV' 

EZRA'S  CREDENTIALS 

(Ezr.  7:11-28) 
(Hebrew)  -      -      -        1  '  It         •  i 

obj^niT^  b3?  rpm  nin^  nirj  ^nni  nsc  .^sbn  -hdh 
BChronicier  -jVj^  n-,  g^j^-j  ^30  .  SDnS  ^^^^TJ^b  .  ^^^^b:j  nb^j  /SFic'^nn^s " 

(Aramaic)        t  t  t  t  t  •.•  i     ■.• 


''This  word  was  probably  dropped  from  the  text  by  accident, 
at  an  early  day.     It  cannot  be  dispensed  with  here. 

^So  I  Esdras,  at  this  point:  ical  ol  Ovpwpol  e<^'  eKciarov  ttvXmvo^, 
and  Joseph  us  also  had  these  words  before  him.  The  words  are 
the  Chronicler's  own  (no  one  else  would  have  been  half  so  likely 
to  write  them),  and  they  are  in  their  original  place,  cf.  II  Chron. 
8:14;  23:18  f . ;  35:15.  They  were  accidentally  omitted  by  some 
one  who  thought  that  the  verse  ended  with  the  reference  to  the 
"Book  of  Moses."  The  exact  form  of  the  words  is  made  certain 
by  the  passages  cited,  and  especially  by  the  rendering  of  this 
same  translator  in  II  Chron.  35:15  =  1  Esdr.  1:15. 

'"On  the  orthography  of  this  name  see  above,  in  the  section  on 
the  proper  names. 

sMeyer,  EntsteJmng,  p.  61,  writes:  "Das  Particip  mit  dem 
abhangigen  Nomen  i<n"I  ^30  kann  nichts  anderes  lieissen  als 
'der  das  Gesetz  geschrieben  hat.'"  He  therefore  concludes  that 
Ezra  is  especially  designated  here,  in  this  official  document,  as  the 
author  of  the  "Priest-Code."  So  far  as  grammar  and  usage  are 
concerned,  this  observation  is  precisely  as  valuable  as  the  one  on 
pp.  16  f.,  in  which  he  insists  that  ^^nirirnnns  b^  ,  Ezr.  4:7,  can 
only  mean  ''against  Artaxerxes."     And  as  for  the  "Priest-Code," 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  197 

b:   ^1  .D^r:   D^b   ^"2""      :ri::riV'      Q'^rzj   "[dVj;]   ,i<-i-" 

•  'r^buj  %-:i:r  n:.'2*^i  s^b-i  Q-p  "-^  ^i  'bnp  b5'*  0'~v^  'T-^ 
nb™bV'  ©n"^?  '"  1"-^  f^"^  .'Db"i"^n^bi  i-rr  b^  rr-^zb 
Dbdn^n  ^1  .bsn'T"'  nb5<b  ^a'^rnn  -niuri  sDb-2  ^n  .nrm  rcD 
D3?  ^  bnz  inr-"2  bsn  ra-i-n  ^-  zri-i  rcD  bbi ""'  ©  ;  n:3-i"2 
©Db-ijin^n  -■!  "nrinb^  n^nb  ""j^n^in-j  ,K-:nji  say  n^2^:nn 
■•i^s  -f^j-i  -pin  nn  ^5Ecra  j<:pn  °x:^sc5<  .n;-  bnp  bs'' 
^T  "Dbnbi^  n^n  ■'-  snnT;  by  i:2n  '^nii>m  .-pn^scji  ■pnn-"ji 
rizm^  N5CD  ^X"J32  np7  7ns;  byi  t-^?  ^^  'H'^V  ©cb"*ijin^n 
-(Fibsb  -^b  ",^nn:n^j  ^1  u^^-s-^v   ©-p-nyn  obnbs  n^y-^D  ^inr^b 


it  is  quite  as  purely  a  fiction  of  modern  Old  Testament  learning  as 
is  the  "Hexateuch,"  against  which  designation  Meyer  (pp.  216  ff.) 
rightly  declaims.  There  was  a  priestly  expansion  and  redac- 
tion of  the  law  (which  took  place  in  Palestine,  not  in  Babylonia)  ; 
but  when  once  the  true  origin  and  character  of  the  Ezra  story  are 
recognized,  there  is  not  a  scrap  of  evidence,  external  or  internal, 
tending  to  show  that  any  separate  "priestly  law-book"  ever 
existed. 

^The  emendation  is  certain. 

'See  the  note  (e)  on  4: 11. 

''The  omission  of  the  subject  (the  pron.  of  the  second  pers. 
sing.)  is  very  awkward,  but  is  also  very  characteristic.  See  Driver, 
Introd.,  list  of  the  Chronicler's  peculiar  syntactical  usages.  No. 
27.  A  good  parallel,  e.  g.,  is  II  Chron,  19:6  (end) :  "and  [he  is] 
with  you  in  the  judgment."     So  also  18:3,  etc. 

'The  characteristic  use  of  b  in  continuing  the  force  of 
another  proposition  previously  used;  see  the  note  (n)  on  6:7;  also 
above,  p.  125,  n,  i,  and  below,  vs.  28. 

"Accusative  of  condition. 

"See  the  note  on  this  suffix  in  5:3. 

°See  above,  on  the  foreign  words. 

PThe  pa  el,  in  this  sense,  is  more  common  than  the  apliel  in 
Aramaic,  whether  Jewish  or  Christian.  To  "emend"  here  is  pure 
vandalism. 

''Cf.  the  beginning  of  6:9. 


198  Ezra  Studies 

osjb-j  "[■:  n-n  "2  -nin  ."nrpb  -jb  bc":  ^i  -rib^ 
i2^'n  ^1  'j^^'^nn  bjb  D:?t:  n^ir  i<jb'j  sncirnn^u^  n:5<  ^3^::^' 
.i^rj"j3  nbi<  -1  xni  nsc  .&5:nD  i<nT>"  li-^b^'j:^  n  bs  ^i  .h^mD 
.ns-j  -^niD  -^t::-  i:'"i  <ns:j  yisp  rp  nr--    o;i2:''n^  5<;'^2C^5 
©nnD  ijib  ^1  rbiz^  .ma,'!  "mr-2  ^nn  n>'l  .n^^^j  -fnn  n-^n  -j^ 

.-(Tnin-J  Dbbv^    o^nirni  i^^biz  n^ib:::  by  q^p  sinb  rr^b  ^n 
.HjI  5<nb5<  n^n  ^nbsi  s^rn:  5<"3'";n  5<n:2T  i^^^bi  i<^:ri5  bD  "i 
©  Dh^b:?  i^'z^'cb  t^-bii:  ^^b  "■■jbni  ibn  rnTi 
^1  7:^1  -^tiSTT  ^3/j  ."^Tn  ^T  "inb^^  n-^jns  .^^ni:?  .'^nDi^i'' 
'-^  .-nbi^  ^nn  ^^t  bsb  .rnna  "^niiJn  ^i  i^^ay  b-b  'yji<i  -inb 

■■"The  god  of  Jerusalem;"  the  Chronicler  is  fond  of  making 
the  foreign  kings  speak  in  this  way;  cf.  vs.  15,  and  1:3.  The 
I  Esdras  Greek  has  accidentally  lost  four  words  here  (8:17) :  /cat 
ra  iepa  aKevrj  ra  StBo/xevd  aot  ek  rrjv  ^(^peiav  tov  lepov  tov  Oeov  aov 
{7rapd8o<?  evonnov  tov  deov\  tov  iv  'lepovaaXtj/ji.  The  L  text  is 
"edited"  beyond  recognition,  as  usual. 

^Cf.  the  beginning  of  6:9. 

'Perhaps  best  pointed  (on  good  manuscript  authority)  i^^"i:n-T3- 
See  above,  on  the  foreign  words. 

"Even  the  Chronicler  should  be  permitted  sometimes  to  vary 
the  form  of  his  phrases.  The  wording  of  MT  here  is  not  in  the 
least  objectionable  (cf.  I  Kings  18:82,  for  example),  and  it  is 
not  even  clear  that  Theodotion  had  a  different  text. 

''See  above,  on  the  foreign  words. 

^The  same  phrase  in  4:13,  20. 

"The  one  place  in  the  Aramaic  of  Daniel  and  Ezra  where  the 
original  consonant  text  appears  to  have  written  this  pronoun  with- 
out final  n  (Strack,  Gramm.  des  Bihl.-Arcm.\  p.  8*).  The 
shorter  form  is  found  in  the  Egyptian  papyri  of  the  fifth  century 
B.  c. 

yCf.  the  orthography  in  Dan.  2:38;  3:3,  etc. 

"^This  refers  to  the  people,  not  to  the  judges. 

""MT  Til  ;  but  the  plural  does  not  seem  to  have  been  read  by 
any  of  the  translators.  Probably  a  copyist's  mistake,  caused  by 
the  ending  of  the  preceding  word. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  199 


0  V^^cxb"!    ]'zi:  •i::;b  -n 
^ssb  .  -|b'::n  zbz  nsTs  -,n:  ^-viis  .  "irniii^  ^-;b^^  n^^r  'i^^n-'       Tbecbronicier 

:•"  '      ,  '         ,^  ,     .  •■     .  ■       ^  (Hebrew) 

r^^rr  td  ^-np-Trnn  ^:i<i   -n^^zi:"  -ban  ^-nr  ^'brbi  r::"i"i 
e'izv  nibyb  n^'j;5<"i  b^^nir-i  n::npsi  .^b:?  '^--bjs 


''This  is  the  best  reading,  even  if  the  I  Esdras  translator  really 
had  the  singular  before  him.  Those  who  were  to  "teach"  were 
Ezra  and  these  lieutenants  of  his,  whose  office  was  imagined 
as  something  like  that  of  an  itinerant  bishop. 

"See  my  note  on  I  Esdr.  -4:39;  above,  p.  25. 

'^Vocalization  uncertain,  ^ii^'^ ,  the  abstract  formed  from  the 
jjell  verbal  adjective,  is  perhaps  as  likely  as  anything.    Qere  ^IT^'JJ  • 

^This  word,  with  the  meaning  "goods,"  also  in  the  Assuan 
papyri. 

^Tliis  joyful  exclamation,  following  immediately  upon  the  letter, 
without  the  necessity  of  any  intervening  narrative,  is  the  best 
single  illustration  of  the  extent  to  which  the  Chronicler  identi- 
fies himself  with  his  Ezra,  the  hero  whom  he  has  created.  Cf. 
Neh. 12:36! 

^See  the  note  (1)  on  vs.  14. 

''The  adjective  "good"  (derived  from  vs.  9)  is  added  here  in  the 
later  form  of  the  text  which  was  rendered  by  Theodotion.  The 
old  Greek  version  agrees  with  MT. 


TRANSLATION 


4* Then  the  people  of  the  land'  kept  weakening  the  hands  of  The  Chronicler 
the  people  of  Judea,  and  disquieting  them  in  their  building,  "and 
hiring  counselors'  against  them,  to  frustrate  their  purpose,  all  the 
days  of  Cyrus'  king  of  Persia.'' 

"And  in  the  reign  of  Xerxes,  at  the  beginning  of  his  reign, 
Bishlam,  Mithradates,  TaVel,  and  the  rest  of  his  companions, 

'See  above,  the  notes  on  the  Hebrew  text. 

''MT  adds,  "and  until  the  reign  of  Darius  king  of  Persia."'     See  the  note 
on  the  Hebrew  text. 


200  Ezra  Studies 

wrote  an  accusation  against  the  inhabitants  of  Judea  and  Jeru- 
salem. 

^And  in  the  days  of  Artaxerxes,'  Rehum  the  reporter™  and 
Shimshai  the  scribe  wrote  to  Artaxerxes  king  of  Persia;  and 
the  text  of  the  letter  was  written  in  Aramaic,   and  translated." 

Aramaic  ^Jlp}nt)n    fJic    yeno)icr   and   Shimshai   the   scribe   icrote   a    letter 

Writer  ^ 

against  Jerusalem  to  Artaxerxes  the  king,  as  follotvs.  «Then 
Rehum  the  reporter  and  Shimshai  the  scribe,  and  the  rest  of  their  companions, 
the  Dinaites,  the  Anharpathkitee,  the  men  of  Tetrapolis,  the  Persians,  the  men 
of  Erech,  the  Babylonians,  and  the  men  of  Susa,  who  are  Elamitee,  '"and 
the  rest  of  the  peoples  which  the  great  and  illustrious  Shalmanassar  trans- 
ported, and  made  to  dwell  in  the  cities  of  Samaria  and  the  rest  of  the  province 
Beyond  the  River;  — this  is  the  copy  of  the  letter  which  they  sent  to  him. 

To  Artaxerxes  the  king;  thy  servants,  the  men  from  Beyond 
the  River,  [send  greeting. )°  '"  To  proceed:  "^'i^e  it  known  to  tlie 
king,  that  tfie  Jews  who  went  up  from  thee^  came  to  us.  Jeriisalem, 
the  rebellious  and  wicked  city,  they  are  building;  they  are  com- 
pleting the  walls,  and  laying  the  foundatioris.  ^^Now  be  it  known 
to  the  king,  that  if  that  city  shall  be  built  and  its  walls  completed, 
they  loill  pay  no  tribute,  tax,  nor  custom,  and  the  royal  taxation 
will  suffer  damage.  ^*Now  inasmuch  as  ive  have  eaten  of  the 
salt  of  the  imlace,  and  it  is  not  fitting  for  us  to  see  the  king''s 
hurt,  for  this  reason  we  hereby  send  and  make  the  matter  knoivn 
to  the  king,  '^so  that  search  may  he  made  in  the  record-books'^  of 
thy  fathers;  and  thou  ivilt  find  in  the  record-books  and  learn,  that 

'That  is,  the  king  whose  reign  immediately  followed  that  of  Xerxes,  just 
as  that  of  Xerxes  was  believed  to  have  immediately  followed  that  of  Cyrus; 
see  above. 

■"In  the  reorganization,  by  Darius  I,  of  the  Persian  provincial  govern- 
ment, an  official  was  created  whose  especial  business  it  was  to  report  to  the 
king  the  progress  of  affairs  in  each  satrapy  (Noldeke,  Aufsdtze  zur  persischen 
Geschichte,  33  f .).  It  is  this  officer  who  is  intended  here  by  the  title  nytD  537^  ; 
cf.  the  use  of  S^yiD  in  5:5.  The  old  Greek  translator,  who  rendered  6  ypdcpuv 
TO,  irpoairlwTovTa,  lived  at  a  time  in  which  the  recollection  of  these  government 
officials  was  still  preserved. 

"That  is,  translated  into  Hebrew;  there  is  no  other  natural  or  possible 
interpretation.  The  narrator  supposed  that  the  Jews  of  the  time  of  Arta- 
xerxes I  did  not  know  Aramaic  well. 

°The  word  of  greeting  is  not  present  in  our  text,  but  may  be  understood. 

pThat  is,  "from  thy  land,"  Babylonia.  The  reference  is  to  the  expedition 
in  the  days  of  Cyrus,  to  which  indirect  allusion  is  again  made  in  the  following 
chapters.     See  above,  p.  161,  n.  31. 

1  Plural  number,  not  singular;  see  the  note  on  the  text. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  201 

iliat  ciiij  Jidfli  been  a  rchcUioiii^  cify,  mid  one  c((iis{ii<j  daiiKKje  to 
kings  and  2>i'ovi)wes,  and  that  insiirrectioii  hath  been  made  therein 
since  the  days  of  old;  therefore  ivas  that  city  laid  ivaste.  ^^We 
make  known  to  the  king,  that  if  that  city  shall  be  built  and  its 
ivalls  completed,  as  a  result  thou  icilt  have  no  part  in  the  province 
Beyond  the  River  J 

"  The  king  returned  answer: 

To  Rehum  the  reporter  and  Shimshai  the  scribe,  and  the  I'cst 
of  their^  companions  ivho  dwell  in  Samaria  and  in  the  remainder 
of  the  province  Beyond  the  River,  greeting.  '*  To  proceed:  "*'  The 
letter  ivhich  ye  sent  to  us  ivas  plainly  read  before  me.  ^^A)id  I 
gave  command,  and  they  made  search,  and  found  that  that  city 
from  days  of  old  hath  risen  against  kings,  and  rebellion  and  in- 
surrection have  been  made  therein.  ''"And  over  Jerusalem  were 
mighty  kings,  ruling  also  in  all  the  province  Beyond  the  River; 
and  tribute,  tax,  and  custom  were  paid  to  them.^  '^Noiv  therefore 
give  command  to  restrain  those  men;  and  let  that  city  not  be 
built,  until  from  me  command  be  given.  '^'And  be  ye  careful  not 
to  deal  negligently  in  this  matter,  lest  tlie  harm  be  increased  to 
the  damage  of  the  kingdom.^ 

^'  Thereupon,  as  soon  as  the  copy  of  the  letter  of  Artaxerxes 
the  king  was  read  before  Rehum  and  Shimshai  the  scribe,  and 
their  companions,  they  went  in  haste  to  Jerusalem  against  the 
Jeivs,  and  restrained  them  by  force  of  arms."  ^*  Then  was  stopped 
the  work  upon  the  house  of  God  in  Jerusalem,  and  it  remained 
'  at  a  standstill  until  the  second  year  of  the  reign  of  Darius  king 
of  Persia. 

S^But  Haggai  the  prophet,  and  Zechariah  the  son  of  Iddo, 
uttered  a  prophecy  for  the  Jews  who  ivere  in  Judea  and  Jerusalem, 
in  the  name  of  tJte  God  of  Israel  whicli'"  was  over  them.     'Thcrc- 

■■  I.  e.,  the  glory  of  the  days  of  David  and  Solomon  will  return,  and  the 
Jews  will  rule  over  all  Samaria  and  Syria. 

*So,  frequently,  the  third  person  rather  than  the  second,  in  Semitic  usage. 
See  the  note  on  the  text  of  G:  6. 

'No  Persian  king  or  official  could  ever  have  written  this  verse,  nor  anything 
resembling  it.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  an  illustration  of  the  old  familiar  custom 
of  the  Jewish  writers  of  the  last  centuries  b.  c,  to  give  glory  to  their  city, 
and  their  temple,  and  themselves,  by  proxy. 

"Lit.,  "to  the  damage  of  kings." 

^Lit.,  "by  arm  and  (military)  force." 

-Cf.  Deut.  28:10,  etc. 


202  Ezra  Studies 

upon  rose  np  Zeruhbahel  the  son  of  Shealtiel  and  Jeshua  the  son 
of  Jozadak,  and  began''  to  build  the  house  of  God  in  Jerusalem, 
and  ivith  them  were  the  prophets  of  God  helping  them. 

^At  that  time  there  came  to  them  Tattenai,  governor  of  the 
j)rovince  Beyond  the  River,  and  Shetharbozenai,^  and  their  com- 
panions, and  thus  they  said  to  them:  Who  hath  given  you  com- 
mand to  build  this  house,  and  to  complete  this  colonnade?''  ^  They 
also  asked^  them:  What  are  the  names  of  the  men  who  are  build- 
ing this  building?  ^But  the  eye  of  their  God  was  upon  the  elders 
of  the  Jews,  and  they  did  not  stop  them,  until  the  report  should 
come  to  Darius  and  thereupon  a  message  be  returned  in  regard 
to  the  matter. 

^The  copy  of  the  letter  which  Tattenai,  governor  of  the  province 
Beyond  the  River,  and  Shetharbozenai,  and  his  companions,  the 
epar^chs  ivho  loere  in  the  province  Beyond  the  River,  sent  to 
Darius  the  king.  ^ They  sent  him  a  communication,  and  thus  was 
loritten  in  it: 

To  Darius  the  king,  cdl  peace.  ^Be  it  knoivn  to  the  king,  that 
we  went  to  the  province  of  Judea,  to  the  house  of  the  great  God; 
and  it  is  being  built  with  great  stones,  and  ivood  is  put  into  the 
tvalls;  and  the  work  is  done  diligently,  and  prospers  in  their 
hands.  ^  Then  we  questioned  those  elders,^  and  thus  we  said  to 
them:  Who  hath  given  you  command  to  build  this  house,  and  to 
complete  this  colonnade?''  ^"^ Moreover,  ive  asked  of  them  their 
names,  in  order  to  make  them  known  to  thee,  so  that  we  might 
write  doivn  the  names  of  the  men  ivho  are  at  their  head.  ^^And 
thus  they  made  reply  to  u,s,  saying:  We  are  the  servants 

of  the  God  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  are  rebuilding  a  house  tvhich 
was  erected  many  years  ago,  one  which  a  great  king  of  Israel 
built  and  completed.  ^^But  because  our  fathers  angered  the  God 
of  heaven,  he  gave  them  into  the  hand  of  Nebuchadnezzar  king 
of  Babylon,  the  Chaldean;  and  he  destroyed  tin's  house,  and  car- 

"See  the  note  on  the  Aramaic  text.  The  phrase  here  implies  nothing  more 
than  the  words  of  Haggai  1:14:  "they  came  and  did  work  on  the  house  of 
Yahw6." 

^The  traditional  pronunciation;  but  see  above,  on  the  proper  names. 

^The  meaning  of  the  Aramaic  word  is  uncertain.  See  above,  on  the  foreign 
words. 

^MT,  "then  thus  we  said  to  them;"  see  the  not?  on  the  text. 

''This  would  indeed  be  a  singular  expression  for  the  hostile  officials  to  use! 

'^See  the  note  in  vs.  3. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  203 

vied  awajj  the  people  captive  to  Bahijlonui.  ^^Biit  in  the  first 
year  of  Cyrus  king  of  Babylon,  Cyrus  the  king  gave  command  to 
build  this  house  of  God.  ^*Also  the  vessels  of  the  house  of  God, 
of  gold  and  of  silver,  ichich  NebucJiadnezzar  had  taken  away  from 
the  temple  in  Jerusalem  and  brought  to  the  temple  in  Babylon, 
Cyrus  the  king  brought  out  from  the  temple  in  Babylon  and  deliv- 
ered to  one  named  Sheshbazzar,  whom  he  had  made  governor. 
^''And  he  said  to  him:  Take  these  vessels,  and  go,  deposit  them  in 
the  temple  ichich  is  in  Jerusalem;  and  let  the  house  of  God  be 
built  upon  its  {former)  site.  ^^Then  came  that  Sheshbazzar  and 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  house  of  God  in  Jerusalem;  and  from 
that  time  until  now  it  hath  been  building,  but  is  not  completed. 
^' Xow  therefore,  if  it  seem  good  to  the  king,  let  search 
be  made  in  the  storehouses'^  in  which  are  the  royal  documents,'' 
in  Babylonia,^  to  see  ivhether  it  be  true  that  command  was  given 
by  Cyrus  the  king  to  build  that  house  of  God  in  Jerusalem;  and 
let  the  king  send  to  us  his  xAeasure  in  the  matter. 

G^Then  Darius  the  king  gave  command,  and  they  made 
search  in  the  storehouses  in  Babylonia^  ichere  the  documents^ 
were  deposited.  '^And  in  the  citadel  at  Ecbatana,  which  is  in  the 
province  of  Media,  there  was  found  a  certain  scroll;^  and  thus 
ivas  written  in  it: 

'Memorandum.  "'//?  the  first  year  of  Cyrus  the  king.  King 
Cyrus  gave  order:  As  for  the  house  of  God  in  Jerusalem,  let  the 
house  be  built  in  the  place  ivhere  they  offer  sacrifices  and  bring 
the  burnt  offerings.  Its  height  shall  be  sixty  cubits  and  its 
breadth  sixty  cubits.  ^Let  there  be  three  courses  of  gre(d  stones, 
and  one  course  of  wood;  and  let  the  expense  be  paid  from  the 
king's  house.  '"Also  the  vessels  of  the  house  of  God,  of  gold  and 
of  silver,  ivhich  Nebuchadnezzar  took  away  from  the  temple  in 
Jerusalem  and  brought  to  Babylon,  let  them  restore;  and  let  it 
{((II)  come  to  the  temple  in  Jerusalem,  to  its  place,  and  be 
deposited  in  the  house  of  God} 

***** 

^Now  Tattoiai,  governor  of  the  province  Beyond  the  Biver, 
Shetharbozenai,  and  their^  companions,  the  eparchs  wJio  are  in 

'^  Plural  number,  not  sinj^ular. 

«MT  has  accidentally  lost  two  words  here.  'Not  "Babylon."' 

sMT,  "the  libraries  in  B.  where  the  treasures  were  deposited." 

'•  Encycl.  Bihl,  II,  1481  middle:  "i.e.,  the  cuneiform  tablet"! 

'On  the  lacuna  at  this  point,  see  above,  p.  159.  ''See  the  note  on  4:17. 


204  Ezra  Studies 

the  province  Beyond  the  River,  he  ye  far  from  thence.  ^ Leave 
the  governor  of  the  Jeics  and  the  elders  of  the  Jews  free  to  work 
upon  that  house  of  God;  let  them  build  that  house  of  God  in  its 
place.  ^And  I  hereby  give  command,  in  regard  to  whatever  ye 
shall  do  in  co-operation  with  those  Jeivish  elders  toward  building 
that  house  of  God,  that  out  of  the  royal  revenue  from  the  tribute 
of  the  province  Beyond  the  River  the  expense  be  diligently  paid 
to  those  men,  ivithout  fail.  "And  whatever  things  are  needful, 
such  as  young  bullocks,  rams,  and  lambs,  for  whole-burnt-offerings 
to  the  God  of  heaven;  wheat,  salt,  wine,  and  oil;  according  to 
the  word  of  the  priests  who  are  in  Jerusalem  let  it  (all)  be  given 
to  them,  day  by  day,  without  negligence;  ^"so  that  they  may  offer 
pleasant  offerings  to  the  God  of  heaven,  and  pray  for  the  life  of 
the  king  and  his  sons.' 

^^And  I  have  made  a  decree,  that  if  any  man  alter  this  edict, 
a  beam  shall  be  pulled  out  of  his  house  and  he  shall  be  impaled 
thereon,  and  his  house  shall  be  made  a  dunghill,  in  punishment 
for  this.  ^'^  And  may  the  God  icho  hath  made  his  name  to  dwell 
there  overthrow  any  king  or  people  who  shall  put  forth  a  hand 
to  destroy^  that  house  of  God  ivhich  is  in  Jerusalem.  I, 
Darius,  have  given  command;  let  it  be  diligently  performed. 

^^Then  Tattenai,  governor  of  the  province  Beyond  the  River, 
Shetharbozenai,  and  their  companions,  according  to  the  word 
which  Darius  the  king  had  sent,  thus  they  did  diligently.  ^*And 
the  elders  of  the  Jews  built  and.  prospered,  through  the  prophecy 
of  Haggai  the  prophet  and  Zechariah  the  son  of  Iddo.  And  they 
completed  their  building'^  by  the  command  of  the  God  of  Israel, 
and  by  the  order  of  Cyrus,  and  Darius,  and  Artaxerxes  king  of  Persia. 
Chronicler  '^And  this  housc  was  finished  on  the  [twenty-] third  day  of  the 
month  Adar,  of  the  sixth  year  of  the  reign  of  Darius  the  king. 
'•"'And  the  children  of  Israel,  the  priests,  and  the  Levites,  and  the 
rest  of  the  children  of  the  captivity  performed  the  dedication  of 
this  house  of  God  with  joy.  ^'And  they  offered,  for  the  dedica- 
tion of  this  house  of  God,  one  hundred  bullocks,  two  hundred 
rams,  and  four  hundred  lambs;  and  for  a  sin  offering  for  all  Israel 
twelve  he-goats,  according  to  the  number  of  the  tribes  of  Israel. 

'Vss.  9f.  are  the  work  of  the  Chronicler;  see  above. 

■"MT,  "to  change,  to  destroy;"  the  result  of  a  copyist's  error,  see  the  note 
on  the  Aramaic  text. 

"Lit.,  "and  they  built  and  completed." 


(Aramaic) 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  205 

'^And  they  stationed  the  priests  in  their  divisions,  and  the  Levites 

in  their  courses,  for  the  service  of  [the  house  of]  God  which  is  in 

Jerusalem,  according  to  the  prescription  of  the  book  of  Moses, 

[and  the  jxjrters  were  at  every  gate].  |   ''And  the  children  of  the   (Hebrew) 

captivity  observed  the  passover  in  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  tirst 

month. 

[The  remaining  verses  {20-22)  of  the  chapter  give  a  brief 
account,  ill  Hebrew,  of  tJiis  jxissover.  Then  follows  the  introduc- 
tion to  flic  sto}\>j  of  Ezra.  7:1- JO,  this  filso  composed  by  tlic 
Chronicler,  and  written  in  Hebrew.  Vs.  11  introduces  the  "-let- 
ter of  Arta.rerxes.'''') 

7"  And  this  is  the  copy  of  the  letter  which  Artaxerxes°  the  king  TheChronicie 
gave  to  Ezra  the  priest,  the  scribe,  learned  in  the  words  of  the 
ordinances  of  Yah\v6  and  his  statutes  for  Israel: 

'"'Artaxerxes,  king  of  kings,  to  Ezra  the  priest,  the  scribe  of  the  TheChronicie 
law  of  the  God  of  heaven,  perfect  [peace].  '''To  proceed:  "^' I  have 
made  a  decree,  that  any  one  in  my  kingdom,  of  the  people  of 
Israel,  and  its  priests,  and  the  Levites,  who  shall  freely  offer  to  go 
with  thee  to  Jerusalem, p  may  go;  ^Mnasmuch  as  thou  art  sent  by 
the  king  and  his  seven  counselors,  to  make  investigation ''  regard- 
ing Judea  and  Jerusalem  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  thy  God 
which  is  in  thy  hand:  'and  to  carry  the  silver  and  gold  which  the 
king  and  his  counselors  have  vowed  to  the  God  of  Israel,  whose 
dwelling  is  in  Jerusalem;  '"as  well  as  all  the  silver  and  gold  which 
thou  shalt  find  in  all  the  province  of  Babylonia  ;"■  together  with 
the  free-will  offering  of  the  people  and  the  priests,  which  they  vow 
for  the  house  of  their  God  which  is  in  Jerusalem.  ''Thou  shalt 
therefore  purchase  diligently,  with  this  money,  bullocks,  rams, 
and  lambs,  besides  their  meal  offerings  and  their  drink  offerings, 
and  thou  shalt  offer  them  upon  the  altar  of  the  house  of  your  God 
which  is  in  Jerusalem.  '''And  whatsoever  shall  seem  good  to  thee 
and  to  thy  brethren  to  do  with  the  rest  of  the  silver  and  gold,  ye 

°I.  e.,  according  to  the  Chronicler,  Artaxerxes  II;  to  whose  reign  he  also 
assigns  the  story  of  Neheiniah.     See  above,  pp.  38,  135  f. 

fOn  the  very  striking  resemblance  of  this  letter,  in  its  substance  and  its 
phraseology,  to  the  similar  documents  (also  composed  by  the  Chronicler)  in 
Ezr.  1:3-6  and  I  Esdr.  4:47-56,  see  above,  pp.  157  f. 

iln  what  follows  it  is  made  plain  that  the  mission  of  Ezra  included  also 
the  institution  of  any  needed  reforms. 

'This  apparently  refers  to  contributions  solicited  from  people  of  tho  prov- 
ince who  were  not  Jews. 


206  Ezra  Studies 

may  do  accordinof  to  the  good  pleasure  of  your  God.  ^''And  the 
vessels  which  are  given  to  thee  for  the  service  of  the  house  of  thy' 
God,  deliver  in  the  presence  of  the  God  of  Jerusalem.^  ^"And 
whatever  other  requirement  of  the  house  of  thy  God  it  may  happen 
to  thee  to  bestow,  thou  mayest  bestow  it  out  of  the  king's  treasury. 

-^And  I,  Artaxerxes  the  king,  hereby  issue  a  decree,  to  all  the 
treasurers  of  the  province  Beyond  the  River;  that  whatever  Ezra 
the  priest,  the  scribe  of  the  law  of  the  God  of  heaven,  shall  require 
of  you,  let  it  be  done  diligently ;  "unto  a  hundred  talents  of  silver, 
and  to  a  hundred  measures  of  wheat,  and  to  a  hundred  measures 
of  wine,  and  to  a  hundred  measures  of  oil,  and  salt  without  pre- 
scription (of  the  amount).  ^'Whatsoever  is  by  the  command  of 
the  God  of  heaven,  let  it  be  done  diligently'  for  the  house  of  the 
God  of  heaven;  lest  wrath  come  upon  the  reign  of  the  king  and 
his  sons.  ^^And  to  you  notice  is  hereby  given,  that  upon  no  one 
of  the  priests  or  Levites,  singers,  porters,  Nethinim,  or  (other) 
servants  of  this  house  of  God,  is  it  permitted  to  impose  tribute, 
tax,  or  custom." 

^^And  do  thou,  Ezra,  according  to  the  wisdom  of  God  which  is 
in  thy  hand,  appoint  magistrates  and  judges,  who  shall  judge  all 
the  people  of  the  province  Beyond  the  River,''  all  who  know  the 

^See  the  note  on  the  Aramaic  text. 

'The  word  is  quite  unknown,  but  this  is  its  evident  meaning. 

"The  gifts  and  prerogatives  promised  in  the  document  thus  far  make 
a  list  which  is  not  quite  incredible  in  itself:  it  is  rather  the  form  in  which  it 
is  all  cast  that  betrays  with  certainty  the  Jevvish  authorship.  It  is  interesting 
to  compare  the  imaginary  letter  from  Demetrius  Soter  to  the  Jews,  "  quoted  " 
in  I  Mace.  10:26-45,  where  the  author  of  that  history  deliberately  sets  himself 
the  task  of  composing  such  a  list  of  royal  grants  and  concefsions  as  should  be 
truly  "incredible"  (cf.  vs.  46). 

But  in  the  final  paragraph  of  the  Artaxerxes  edict,  where  the  king  for- 
mally adopts  the  law  of  Moses  for  the  Jews  of  all  Syria  and  Palestine,  and 
gives  Ezra  and  the  officers  appointed  by  him  free  hand  to  enforce 
this  law  throughout  the  whole  Transflumen{!),  with  power  to  imprison,  con- 
fiscate, banish,  and  execute  the  death  penalty,  it  is  plain  that  even  the  last 
vestige  of  probability  is  gone. 

"Meyer,  EnMehung,  p.  67,  argues  that  this  phrase  means  (and  presumaV)ly 
it  dues,  since  the  Chronicler  wrote  it)  the  Jewish  community  in  the 
Transflumen,  '"oder  wie  wir  sagen  wilrden  Palastina  "[!],  and  then  adds,  that 
the  Jews  of  Palestine  occupied  only  the  one  compact  settlement  in  Judea. 
That  is,  mriD  132/2  ""T  XlSr  bD  is  by  these  successive  steps  reduced  to  mean 
only  the  Jewish  church  in  Judea!  This  is  convenient  reasoning,  but  in  view 
of  the  constant  use  of  the  term  "  Beyond  the  River"  in  express  contrast  with 
Judea,  all  through  Ezra  and  Neheniiah,  the  argument  cannot  stand. 


The  Aramaic  Portions  of  Ezra  207 

law  of  thy  God ;  and  those  who  do  not  know  it  ye  shall  teach.  "'And 
whoever  will  not  observe  the  law  of  thy  God  and  the  law  of  the 
king,  let  judgment  be  executed  diligently  upon  him;  whether  unto 
death,  or  to  ])anis]inient,  or  to  confiscation  of  goods,  or  to 
imprisonment. 

"'Blessed"'  be  Yahwe.  the  God  of  (jur  fathers,  who  put  such  a 
thing  as  this  into  the  heart  of  the  king,  to  beautify  the  house  of 
Yahw6  which  is  in  Jerusalem:  "'^and  gave  me  favor  in  the  eyes  of 
the  king  and  his  counselors,  and  all  the  mighty  oflBcers  of  the  king. 
So  I  strengthened  myself,  by  virtue  of  the  hand  of  Yahw6  my 
God  which  was  over  me,  and  gathered  out  of  Israel  chief  men''  to 
go  up  with  me. 

'"■See  the  note  on  the  text. 

"Cf.  especially  Ezr.  1:5  and  I  Esdr.  5:1.  These  ''chief  men"  of  Israel  are 
sure  to  appear  wherever  the  Chronicler  is  the  writer. 


VII 


THE  CHRONICLER  AS  EDITOR  AND  AS 
INDEPENDENT  NARRATOR 

I.       THE    chronicler's    MAIN    PURPOSE 

The  Chronicler  is  a  M'riter  who  has  received  a  good  many 
hard  knocks — often  well  deserved  —  from  modern  critics  of  every 
school,  but  one  whose  importance  as  a  composer  of  Hebrew  narra- 
tive seems  to  have  remained  everywhere  unnoticed.  He  is  not 
merely  a  compiler  and  editor,  selecting  and  shaping  materials 
which  lay  before  him;  he  is  also  an  original  author,  and  possessed 
of  some  striking  literary  excellences,  which  appear  in  every  part 
of  his  unaided  work.  It  is  the  main  purpose  of  the  following 
investigation  to  show,  more  fully  than  was  possible  in  my  former 
treatise,'  the  extent  and  the  nature  of  the  Chronicler's  independent 
contributions  to  the  "post-exilic"  history  of  Israel. 

As  I  have  already  pointed  out,  and  as  will  appear  still  more 
fully  in  the  sequel,  the  Chronicler's  great  task  was  to  establish 
the  supreme  authority  of  the  Jerusalem  cultus,  in  all 
its  details  (see  the  statements  already  made,  pp.  153-55).  It  is 
evident  that  this  authority  had  been  sharply  challenged,  as,  indeed, 
was  quite  inevitable.  So  long  as  the  Hebrews  were  all,  or  mostly, 
settled  in  Palestine,  and  with  a  man  of  David's  line  occupying  the 
throne  in  Jerusalem,  there  could  be  no  question  as  to  the  center 
of  the  Israelite  religion;  but  when,  on  the  contrary,  the  Hebrew 
state  was  overthrown,  and  the  people  scattered  abroad,  while  new" 
Jewish  temples  were  gaining  in  influence,  the  questions  of 
authority  anci  centralization  became  burning  ones.  Just  as  one 
and  another  of  the  great  branches  of  the  Christian  church  have 
striven,  with  varying  success,  to  show  the  apostolic  origin  of  their 
institutions,  mainly  to  silence  their  opponents,  so  the  Jews  of  the 
Second  Temple  found  themselves  called  upon  to  prove,  if  they 
could,  that  they  in  distinction  from  their  brethren  elsewhere  were 
the  real  successors  and  heirs  of  David  and  Solomon,  and  that  their 

'  Composition  of  Ezra-Nehemiah,  1896.  The  main  conclusions  there  stated,  though  new 
and  thus  far  only  partially  accepted  by  Old  Testament  scholars,  are  all,  as  I  believe,  quite 
certain. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         201) 

local  traditions  of  the  ttnii[)l('  adiiiiuistratiou  and  wcjrship  were 
really  derived  from  Moses  and  Aaron. 

Against  the  claims  of  the  exclusive  party  in  Jerusalem  sto(xl 
some  formidal)le  obstacles.  Of  these,  the  most  important  by  far 
was  the  tradition,  which  had  grown  up,  that  Jerusalem  and  Judea 
were  not  only  completely  depopulated  by  the  armies  of  Nebuchad- 
rezzar, but  that  they  remained  thus  vacant  for  a  long  time.  Thus 
especially  II  Kings  24:14  flP.;  25:8-12,  20;  Jer.  25:11  f.;  20:10, 
etc.  This  tradition — ^due  chietiy  to  a  misunderstanding  of 
Haggai  and  Zecliaraiah  —  was  harmless  at  first;  but  when  the 
new  Israelite  seat  of  worship  was  established  at  Shechem.  a  most 
etfective  weapon  was  put  into  the  hands  of  this  rival  sect.  The 
Samaritans  could  claim,  and  with  much  apparent  right  on  their 
side,  that  iheij  themselves  were  the  rightful  heirs  and  the  true 
church.  Jerusalem  had  had  its  long  and  glorious  day,  and  would 
always  remain  the  most  sacred  of  cities  to  the  Hebrew ;  but  might 
not  the  center  of  gravity  of  Israel,  and  especially  the  principal 
seat  of  the  cultus,  now  return  northward?  The  contest  of  the 
Jews  with  the  Samaritans  was  really  a  life  and  death  struggle,  and 
the  latter  possessed  some  important  external  advantages  at  the 
start.  There  were  doubtless  also  facts  connected  with  the  religious 
tradition,  to  which  they  could  appeal,  and  which  could  not  easily 
be  gainsaid.  They  could  probably  prove,  in  a  great  many 
instances,  that  not  only  individuals  of  priestly  rank,  but  also  whole 
priestly  families,  had  migrated  into  the  North-Israelite  territory 
when  Jerusalem  was  destroyed,  and  that  their  descendants  were 
now  pillars  of  the  Samaritan  church.  These  were  sons  of  Aaron, 
and  with  them  were  Levites;  were  there  any  in  Jerusalem  who 
could  show  a  clearer  title?  Probably  not,  until  the  Chronicler 
wrote  his  history,  carrying  back  through  the  past  centuries  the 
genealogy  of  the  families  who  in  his  day  constituted  the  loyal 
Jewish  church  in  Jerusalem  and  the  neighboring  towns,  and 
excluding  all  others  from  legitimacy. 

Nor  was  it  merely  with  the  Samaritans  and  other  rivals  in 
view  that  this  work  was  undertaken.  The  Jews  had  need  to 
justify  themselves  and  their  cult  in  the  eyes  of  the  greater  world 
round  about  them;  see  above,  pp.  147,  153,  155.  Moreover,  the 
glory  of  Jerusalem  and  of  David's  line  was  not  duly  appreciated, 
even  in  Judea,  especially  now  that  the  horizon  of  the  people  had 
been  greatly  widened.      Hence  the  Chronicler's  marked  interest 


210  Ezra  Studies 

in  foreign  kings,  and  bis  freqnent  attempts  to  show  the  wide  influ- 
ence of  the  Hebrew  power.  He  adds  an  east-Jordanic  list  of 
names  at  the  end  of  I  Chron.  11  (see  below) ;  describes  David's 
magnificent  army,  in  12:23-40;  besides  incorporating  (especially 
in  chaps.  18-20)  all  the  material  of  this  sort  from  II  Samuel. 
He  expands  greatly  the  story  of  Hiram  of  Tyre  in  his  relations 
with  Solomon  (see  below),  and  makes  much  of  the  incident  of 
Josiah  and  Necho.  Further  illustration  will  be  given  in  the 
sequel.  It  may  be  that  the  occasional  accounts  of  great  building 
operations  undertaken  in  more  or  less  remote  regions  by  kings  of 
Judah  originated  in  this  same  tendency.  And  hence,  certainly, 
the  large  numbers  which  he  so  often  introduces.  He  wished 
his  readers,  and  perhaps  especially  the  youth  of  his  people,  to  feel 
the  might  and  splendor  of  the  ancient  time,  of  which  the  preserved 
record  was  so  wretchedly  meager  (see  below,  p.  231,  note).  When 
for  instance,  he  narrates  how  Solomon,  at  the  dedication  of  the 
temple,  sacrificed  "22,000  oxen  and  120,000  sheep,"  we  may 
regard  the  exaggeration  as  a  small  outburst  of  loyalty  on  his  part. 
Not  even  Nebuchadnezzar,  or  Darius  Codomannus,  or  Alexander 
the  Great,  those  mightiest  of  all  kings  in  the  popular  belief  of  the 
Chronicler's  time,  were  able  to  make  offerings  on  such  a  scale 
as  this. 

An  important  feature  of  his  undertaking,  and  one  in  which  he 
evidently  took  especial  satisfaction,  was  the  celebration  of  the 
Levites.  In  magnifying  their  office  he  magnified  the  ecclesi- 
astical organization  in  Jerusalem,  and  at  the  same  time  filled  what 
must  have  seemed  to  him  a  serious  gap  in  the  written  history  of 
Israel  as  it  then  existed.  Side  by  side  with  the  priests,  these 
temple  officials  held  a  most  conspicuous  place  in  the  public  wor- 
ship of  his  time.  There  was  the  main  body  of  "Levites"  with 
their  prescribed  part  in  the  ritual  and  the  service  of  the  temple ; 
there  were  also  the  special  Levitical  classes  of  "Singers"  and 
"Porters;"^  then,  on  a  lower  plane  than  the  Levites,  but  doing 
an  indispensable  work,  stood  the  class  of  temple  servants  called 
the  "Nethinim."  These  all  had  their  minutely  regulated  duties, 
and  their  own  privileges  and  perquisites.  The  rights  and  duties 
of  these  classes  might  easily  be  challenged,  however,  for  through- 
out the  greater  part  of  the  history  of  Israel  they  were  altogether 
ignored.     The  Mosaic  and  Aaronic  institutions  as  described  in 

■^Oii  tlic  relation  of  these  to  the  Levites,  see  below. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         211 

the  Pentateuch  do  indeed  include  the  Levites,  but  in  the  subse- 
quent history,  from  Joshua  to  the  end  of  II  Kings,  they  are  rarely 
mentioned.  The  Singers,  Porters,  and  Nethinim  received  no 
specific  mention  whatever,  either  in  the  Pentateuch  or  in  the 
other  writings.  The  Chronicler  believed  that  the  ritual  in  which 
he  himself  had  an  active  part  was  the  true  Mosaic  ritual;  but  he 
could  not  have  proved,  from  the  Hebrew  historical  writings,  that 
it  had  been  perpetuated  in  actual  usage  through  the  time  of  the 
kingdom.  Moreover,  the  Chronicler  was  probably  himself  one  of 
the  temple  Singers  (as  modern  scholars  have  recognized),  and 
was  proud  of  the  office  and  of  his  Levitical  brethren.  Ho  took 
pleasure  in  doing  them  this  tardy  justice,  showing  in  extended 
narrative  the  part  which  (as  he  would  have  said)  they  miisf  hare 
planed  in  the  history  of  the  true  Israel.  But  what  he  planned, 
as  has  already  been  said,  was  not  merely  a  "history  of  the 
Levites;''  it  was  a  history  which  was  designed  to  set  the  whole 
Jerusalem  church  on  its  feet,  once  for  all. 

He  took  his  starting-point,  as  a  matter  of  course,  in  the  insti- 
tutions of  his  own  day.  The  Levitical  organization  as  it  then 
existed;  the  various  duties  and  prerogatives  of  the  clergy;  the 
geographical  distribution  of  ''Israel  and  the  priests  and  the 
Levites"  in  their  cities  and  villages,  as  it  was  at  that  time;  the 
details  of  the  worship  in  the  temple;  all  these  things  he  carried 
back  into  the  beginnings  of  Hebrew  history,  incorporating  them 
there  and  in  the  record  of  every  subsequent  period.  He  of  course 
made  use  of  the  already  existing  narrative,  retaining  every  part  of 
it  which  could  be  made  to  serve  his  very  definite  purpose.  The 
institutions  of  the  Jewish  church  were  thus  given  a  leading  place 
— their  rightful  place,  any  zealous  Jew  would  have  said — in  the 
stories  of  David  and  Solomon,  of  Jehoshaphat  and  Hezekiah  and 
Josiah,  as  well  as  in  Nehemiah's  personal  narrative. 

He  proceeded  in  a  similar  manner  in  com{)iling  the  genea- 
logical tables,  which,  together  with  the  story  of  the  Return 
from  the  Exile,  constituted  the  most  important  part  of  his  work. 
The  already  existing  lists,  found  in  the  Pentateuch  and  the  His- 
torical Books,  he  used  wherever  they  seemed  desirable.  But  in 
very  many  of  the  names  which  he  repeats  over  and  over  again, 
especially  in  the  post-exilic  part  of  his  history,  we  may  be  sure 
that  we  have  the  names  of  his  own  companions  and  friends,  the 
most  zealously   "orthodox"   of   the   third  century   b.  c.     These, 


212  Ezra  Studies 

whether  priests  or  temple-servants  or  laymen,  constituted  the 
inner  circle  of  the  Jewish  church  of  his  time ;  and  they,  like  their 
cultus,  were  here  legitimated.  When  he  had  finished  his  work, 
he  had  shown  that  none  of  the  pure  stock  of  Israel,  none  of  the 
true  representatives  of  the  cultus,  could  be  looked  for  outside  the 
territory  of  Judah  and  Benjamin.  And  he  had  scattered  the 
names  of  his  like-minded  contemporaries  (in  a  rather  helter- 
skelter  way,  it  is  true)  all  through  his  account  of  the  Restoration; 
showing  that  these  families  were  the  ones  which  '"returned"  with 
Zerubbabel  and  Ezra,  signed  the  pledge  against  foreign  marriages 
and  the  agreement  to  support  the  cultus,  built  the  wall  of  Jerusa- 
lem in  the  time  of  Nehemiah,  and  helped  to  dedicate  it.  Here  he 
took  the  only  possible  way  of  placing  orthodox  Judaism  safely 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  Samaritans  and  of  the  rest  of  the  D^? 
ysn  (which  included  all  the  apostates  of  Israel)  :  the  pure  blood 
and  the  true  loorship  ivere  transmitted  only  by  way  of  Babylonia. 
The  zeal  of  the  Chronicler  for  the  pure  blood  of  Judah  and 
Benjamin  — as  well  as  of  the  House  of  Levi — was  always,  and 
must  of  necessity  have  been,  a  leading  motive  in  his  work.  The 
true  stock  of  Israel  must  keep  itself  separate  from  "the 
heathen  of  the  land."  Intermarriage  with  these  foreigners 
was  unlawful.  The  northern  Israelites,  whose  center  was  now  at 
Shechem,  had  intermarried  to  some  extent  —  and  perhaps  to  a 
very  considerable  extent — -with  the  Gentiles  who  lived  near  them. 
The  Samaritan  church,  which  was  probably  founded  only  a  short 
time  before  the  Chronicler  wrote,  came  into  being  partly  as  a  result 
of  the  runaway  marriage  of  a  Jewish  priest  with  the  daughter  of  an 
outsider.^  So  the  Chronicler  and  those  of  his  school  lost  no 
opportunity  of  asserting  that  the  Samaritans  were  a  heterogeneous 
mob  of  heathen,  recruited  from  many  lands.  The  Chronicler's 
aversion  to  the  marriage  of  Hebrews  with  foreigners  shows  itself 
in  many  places.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  single  instance  is 
found  in  the  passage  II  Chron.  24:20,  which  is  his  own  improved 
version  of  II  Kings  12:21.  The  story  of  the  assassination  of 
King  Joash  of  Judah  is  being  told,  and  in  the  older  account  the 
names  of  those  who  conspired  against  him  are  given  as  "  Jozakar 
the  son  of   ^13?"-"^  ,  and  Jehozabad  the   son  of  TiZ'Cj  ."      The  two 

3  As  I  liave  already  rpinarkod  (above,  p.  1(58),  it  may  well  be  that  the  Sanaballat  of  the 
Samaritan  schism  —  in  whatever  time  we  suppose  him  to  have  lived  —  was  a  man  of  Hebrew 
origin.  In  that  case,  we  must  suppose  that  ho  was  regarded  as  an  apostate  by  the  Jews  of 
Jerusalem,  for  some  good  reason. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         '213 

names  here  printed  in  Hebrew  characters  are  both  masculine, 
beyond  much  doubt;  but  the  final  D  of  the  former  one  looked  to 
the  Chronicler  like  the  feminine  ending,  and  this  suggested  to 
him  his  opportunity.  In  the  story  as  he  tells  it,  the  one  of  the 
two  conspirators  (impious  wretches  in  his  eyes,  even  though  the 
king  had  deserved  his  fate)  was  "'the  son  of  tiV'!'^  fhe  Ammo- 
nitcss,''''  and  the  other  was  "the  son  of  H^^-'l"  tJic  Moahitcss.''' 
The  alteration  here  made  is  one  of  the  most  instructive  in  all  the 
Chronicler's  work. 

These  are  the  principal  aims,  or  rather,  the  ])rincipai  features 
of  the  one  great  aim,  of  his  book.  Viewed  according  to  our 
modern  standards  of  judgment,  this  was  an  unlawful  manufacture 
of  history.  From  his  own  point  of  view,  and  that  of  his  contempo- 
raries, his  purpose  was  a  laudable  one,  and  the  method  employed 
by  no  means  illegitimate.  All  those  who  understood  what  he 
had  done,  but  were  not  actually  sharers  in  his  intent,  would,  of 
course,  simply  ignore  his  version  of  the  history.  It  does  indeed 
seem  for  a  long  time  to  have  received  very  little  notice. 

II.       THE    chronicler    AS    EDITOR 

It  is  fortunate  that  we  [)ossess  the  most  of  the  sources  used  by 
the  Chronicler  in  constructing  his  own  version  of  the  history  of 
Israel:  we  are  thus  enabled  to  see  with  the  utmost  clearness  his 
method  of  using  them. 

1.   In  tJic  Books  of  Cltvoiiiclcs 

The  Chronicler's  proceeding  is,  of  course,  an  eclectic  one.  He 
does  not,  as  a  rule,  record  the  events  of  the  history  for  their  own 
sake,  but  merely  for  the  aid  which  they  give  to  his  immediate 
purpose.  He  is  not  rewriting  the  whole  history  of  Judah 
from  the  standpoint  of  his  own  religious  interest ;  he  is  rewriting 
only  that  amount  of  the  history  which  seems  to  him  desir- 
able. 

Some  considerable  passages  to  which  he  can  have  had  no 
objection  in  themselves  are  either  greatly  abridged  or  omitted 
altogether.  In  other  words,  it  was  not  an  object  of  his  to  incorpo- 
rate (ill  of  the  records  of  Judah  which  he  himself  would  have 
regarded  as  both  authentic  and  unobjectionable;  what  he  attempted 
to  do  was  to  make  a  new  edition,  abridged  in  many  places  and 
freely  expanded  in  many  others.      It  is  certain  that  he  did  not 


214  EzKA  Studies 

mean  to  supplant  the  books  of  Samuel  and  Kings;  he  intended 
rather  to  supplement  them.  In  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  chief 
significance  of  his  undertaking  lay  in  the  material  which  he  him- 
self composed  and  added.  The  older  narrative  furnished  the 
foundation  and  the  lower  framework,  into  and  upon  which  he 
could  build  the  new  structure  which  (in  his  view)  was  so  sorely 
needed.  But  both  parts  were  necessary,  the  old  as  well  as 
the  new,  and  the  former  must  have  its  due  proportion.  It 
was  evident,  for  instance,  that  the  text  of  Kings  (namely,  in 
the  portions  relating  to  Judah)  could  not  be  greatly  abridged 
without  defeating  the  end  for  which  the  new  edition  was  made. 

Wherever  it  is  practicable,  the  Chronicler  reproduces  his  source 
with  little  or  no  change.  Thus,  in  I  Chron.  10:1  — 11:47,  the  text 
of  I  Sam.  31  and  II  Sam.  23:8-39  is  given  in  very  nearly  its 
original  wording.*  Of  the  two  chapters  thus  reproduced,  the  one 
narrates  the  death  of  Saul  and  the  accession  of  David  to  the  throne, 
and  was  therefore  important  for  the  Chronicler's  purpose.'  The 
other  gives  a  catalogue  of  David's  most  renowned  warriors,  and 
some  of  the  anecdotes  told  of  them.  The  reason  why  the  Chron- 
icler includes  this  (and  adds  to  it  also,  in  the  next  chapter 
especially)  is  not  merely  "his  fondness  for  lists,"  it  is  rather 
because  of  the  character  of  his  book,  as  a  repertorium  of  such 
official  statistics  as  these.  If  the  lists  of  the  later  history  were  to 
make  the  desired  impression,  those  of  the  early  times  must  be 
given  in  sufficient  number  and  fulness.  He  has,  indeed,  made 
his  own  contribution  to  these  two  passages,  in  the  shape  of  char- 
acteristic additions.  These  will  be  noticed  below.  Many  other 
chapters,  or  long  passages,  from  Samuel  and  Kings  are  transferred 
bodily  in  this  same  way.  Thus,  for  example,  I  Chron.  17:1  — 
20:8,  in  which  we  have  a  generally  faithful  transcript  of  II  Sam., 
chaps.  7,  8,  and  10;  II  Chron.  6:1-39  (  =  1  Kings  8:12-50); 
9:1— 11:4(  =  I  Kings  10:1-48;  11:41-43;  12:1-24).  II 
Chron.  18:3-34  is  an  almost  exact  replica  of  I  Kings  22:4-35. 

*  It  is  of  course  to  be  borne  in  miml  that  tlie  text  of  Gini.-Sam.-Kings  which  lay  before 
theClironicler  diti'ered  somewliat  from  ours.  The  most  of  the  many  insignificant  variations 
which  we  see  are  doubtless  clue  to  his  source  rather  than  to  his  own  hand. 

5  The  Chronicler  must  have  had  a  keen  personal  interest  in  tlie  many  other  narratives 
of  David  ;  the  stories  of  his  youth  and  his  exploits  ;  his  friendship  for  Jonathan  ;  his  flight 
from  Saul,  and  his  magnanimity  vi^hen  he  had  the  king  in  his  power;  and  eo  on.  But  he 
could  not  repeat  them  here;  they  fell  quite  outside  the  scheme  of  his  book, 
which  follows  everywhere  its  one  definite  aim,  and  is  constructed  with  considerable  atten- 
tion to  proportion.  It  is  often  said  that  the  Chronicler  omitted  the  story  of  Bathsheba 
because  of  its  detriment  to  the  character  of  David;  but  the  fact  is,  it  had  no  relation  to  his 
main  purpose, and  could  not  well  have  b:ien  included. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         215 

Similarly.  38:1-9  is  a  trausc-ript  of  II  Kiu<,^s  *21:l-ll.  and  II 
Chron.  34:15-31  of  II  Kings  22:8  —  23:3,  and  there  are  numer- 
ous other  cases  of  the  sort.  The  passages  thus  transcribed  include 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  material  derived  by  the  Chronicler 
from  Gen. -Sam. -Kings.  Of  them  in  general  may  be  said  that 
whichissaid  by  Benzinger  of  II  Chron., chap.  23  (('oiiiiii.,  p.  Ill) : 
"Soviel  als  moglich  ist  vom  Text  ....  wortlich  geblieben." 
The  Chronicler  gives  himself  no  unnecessary  lal)or.  Among  the 
passages  of  the  older  history  which  he  could  use  for  his  purpose, 
there  were  many  which  gave  him  no  occasion  to  introduce  his  own 
special  proi)erties,  since  they  offered  no  point  of  direct  contact 
with  the  Jewish  church  and  its  institutions  or  its  personnel. 
Such,  for  example,  were  I  Chron..  chaps.  10,  18,  10.  II  Chron.  9, 
10,  IS,  among  those  which  have  been  mentioned.  Other  passages, 
again,  needed  no  revision  since  they  were  already  con- 
ceived in  the  Chronicler's  own  spirit.  Such  were  I  Chron., 
chap.  17;  II  Chron.,  chaps.,  6,  38:1-9;  34:15-81;  as  well  as  any 
lists  of  names  which  could  give  real  or  apparent  sup|)ort  to  the 
claim  of  the  Jews  in  Jerusalem. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  is  well  known,  there  are  many  cases  in 
which  the  Chronicler,  while  using  material  from  his  older  sources, 
makes  more  or  less  extensive  alterations  on  his  own  authority. 
These  alterations  include,  first,  minor  insertions  and  additions,  as 
well  as  occasional  omissions.  For  example,  in  I  Chron.  3:9  we 
have  a  simple  editorial  expansion  (cf.  2:4),  and  in  4:38  he  adds 
his  favorite  word  123""^".  In  II  Chron.  34:80  he  inserts  "and 
the  Levites,"  and  such  insertions  as  this  are  of  course  very  often 
necessary  from  his  point  of  view.  He  very  frequently  interpolates 
a  verse  or  two  in  the  midst  of  the  matter  w^hich  he  is  transcribing. 
Thus,  at  the  end  of  the  story  of  Saul's  death  he  appends  a  remark 
of  his  own  (I  Chron.  10:13  f.)  designed  to  show  more  clearly  the 
significance  of  the  events  narrated.  In  the  account  of  the  bring- 
ing of  the  ark  into  the  temple,  II  Chron.,  chap.  5,  he  inserts  a 
characteristic  passage,  vss.  11-13,  showing  what  an  important  part 
in  the  service  was  played  by  the  Levitical  musicians.  In  7:6  the 
same  thing  takes  place,  and  there  are  many  other  instances  of  the 
kind.  In  I  Chron.  11:41-47  we  have  an  addition  of  another  sort, 
but  equally  characteristic.  The  source,  II  Sam.  28:24-39,  had 
just  given  a  list  of  the  mighty  men  of  David's  armies,  reproduced 
in  I  Chron.  ll:26-41a.     The  Chronicler,  one  of  whose  chief  con- 


216  Ezra  Studies 

cerns  is  the  extension  of  Jerusalem's  sphere  of  influence,  even 
into  foreign  lands  (see  above),  seizes  the  opportunity  to  add  the 
names  of  a  number  of  men  from  the  country  east  of  the 
Jordan  ;  why  should  this  part  of  the  Israelite  territory  be  left 
out?  The  names  are,  of  course,  invented  for  the  occasion;  there 
is  no  more  reason  for  supposing  a  written  source  here  than  there 
is  in  the  case  of  the  other  insertions  just  described.  There  are 
still  other  pet  interests  of  his,  of  lesser  importance,  out  of  regard 
to  which  he  has  occasionally  inserted  verses  or  longer  passages. 
Thus,  his  fondness  for  mention  of  the  homage  paid  by  foreign 
kings  and  nations  to  Jerusalem  and  the  house  of  David  (see 
above)  leads  him  to  make  such  interpolations  as  II  Chron. 
9:26'*  and  I  Chron.  14: 17.  Other  similar  cases  are  II  Chron.  26:7f. 
and  27 : 5  f .  He  is  always  greatly  interested  in  building  operations, 
and  especially  in  the  buildings  and  the  topography  of  Jerusalem. 
Hence  the  isolated  statements  concerning  these  things  which  he 
occasionally  throws  in  for  the  purpose  of  giving  fresh  interest  to 
his  narrative.  In  II  Chron.  26:6-10,  after  transcribing  the  few 
things  which  are  said  of  King  Uzziah  in  II  Kings  15:1-3,  he 
proceeds  to  describe  in  detail  the  king's  greatness.'  Vs.  6  nar- 
rates: "He  broke  down  the  wall  of  Gatb,  and  the  wall  of  Yabneh, 
and  the  wall  of  Ashdod;  and  he  built  fortresses^  in  Ashdod  and 
(elsewhere)  in  Philistia."  And  vs.  9  proceeds:  "Moreover 
Uzziah  built  towers  in  Jerusalem  at  the  corner  gate,  and  at 
the  valley  gate,  and  at  the  angle  of  the  wall,  and  forti- 
fied them.  "'And  he  built  towers  in  the  wilderness,"  etc.  In  the 
following  chapter,  in  telling  the  story  of  Jotham,  similar  notices  are 
introduced.  To  21:Sa,  which  is  taken  from  II  Kings  15:35, 
"He  built  the  upper  gate  of  the  house  of  Yahw6,"  the  Chronicler 
adds:  "and  on  the  wall  of  the  Ophel  he  built  much.  *More- 
over  he  built  cities  in  the  hill  country  of  eludah,  and  on  the 
wooded  heights  he  built  fortresses  and  towers."  Compare  further 
33:14,  where  it  is  said  of  King  Manasseh:  "He  built  an  outer 
wall  to  the  city  of  David,  on  the   west  side  of  Gihon,  in  the 

« In  vs.  23  of  this  chapter,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  probable  that  he  found  the  word 
13^^  ,  '•  kings, "  in  the  text  of  I  Kings  10: 24  which  lay  before  him.  Observe  the  witness  of 
the  Greek  and  the  Syriac,  as  well  as  that  of  the  following  verse. 

'According  to  his  custom,  in  order  to  draw  sharp  contrast  with  the  passage  which  fol- 
lows, vss.  16-20.  This  wliole  chapter  affords  one  of  the  best  illustrations  of  his  qualities  as 
a  story-teller  (see  below). 

8  So  apparently,  the  word  D'^iy  must  be  interpreted  here,  as  occasionally  elsewhere. 
The  text  of  the  verse  seems  to  be  sound. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         217 

valley,  up  to  the  entrance  to  the  fish  gate;  and  he 
compassed  aboiit  the  Ophel,  and  raised  it  to  a  very  great 
height."  Similarly  in  32:30  it  is  said  of  Hezekiah:  "He 
stopped  the  upper  exit  of  the  waters  of  Gihon,  and 
brought  them  down  on  the  west  side  of  the  city  of  David," 
in  which  we  have  merely  the  Chronicler's  more  vivid  version  of 
II  Kings  20:20.  Still  another  case  of  the  same  sort  is  in  3G:8, 
in  the  passage  which  has  been  accidentally  lost  from  our  Hebrew 
but  is  preserved  in  Theodotion's  Greek  (as  already  shown  ) :  "So 
Jehoiakim  sle[)t  with  his  fathers"  (these  words  being  taken  from 
II  Kings  24:6),  "and  was  buried  in  the  garden  of  Uzza  with 
his  fathers;"  cf.  II  Kings  21:18,  26.  In  no  one  of  these  state- 
ments is  there  anything  to  make  it  probable  that  the  Chronicler 
had  any  other  source  than  his  iaiagination.  He  understood  the 
great  value  of  "local  color"  for  enlivening  historical  narrative,  and 
here  also  he  followed  his  usual  custom  of  projecting  into  the  past 
the  things  (in  this  case  topographical  features)  which  he  saw  with 
his  own  eyes.  Some  other  minor  additions  to  the  text  made  by 
him  in  order  to  give  greater  liveliness  to  the  narrative  will  be 
noticed  below.'' 

Secondly,  ihoroiKjlmoiiui  aUe  rat  ions.  The  passages  of  this 
nature  are,  as  we  should  expect,  comparatively  few  in  numl)er  and 
brief  in  extent.  They  are  of  three  kinds.  The  first  case  is  where 
thorough  revision  is  undertaken  iii  the  interest  of  the  Chronicler's 
tendency  :  a  thing  which  woidd  very  rarely  be  necessary,  since 
ordinarily  the  unsatisfactory  material  could  either  be  omitted  or 
else  set  right  by  the  insertion  of  a  word  or  a  verse  here  and  there. 
The  second  case  is  that  of  abridgment,  where  material  not 
especially  valuable  to  the  Chronicler  is  condensed.  This,  again, 
is  a  rare  occurrence.  The  third  is  where  the  Chronicler  composes 
freely  a  passage  of  considerable  length  on  the  basis  of  a  few 
words  contained  in  the  original  source.  There  are  not  many 
instances  of  this  nature. 

9 Some  apparent  instances  of  arbitrary  alteration  by  tlic  Chronicler  are  probably  not 
such  in  reality.  In  II  Chron.  1.3:  2  (cf.  11 :20!),  for  example,  it  is  presumably  the  text 
which  is  at  fault,  and  the  most  probable  supposition  is  that  a  scribe  accidentally  omitted  one 
whole  line  of  his  copy.  From  the  analogy  of  numerous  otlier  passages,  and  especially  with 
the  aid  of  I  Kings  15:8.  10  (where  "Absalom  "  is  plainly  a  mistake  caused  by  vs.  2),  Vi.  wo 
may  restore  with  confidence  as  follows:  "lb  np''1  ■  DlblCDS  STQ  HDyO]  TQS?  CITI 
•  ny^jk  ■J'a  bS^"ni<  nn  rO^  [PX  n©S  "  And  lils  mother's  name  was  .V<uica/i//ic 
dawiht'-r  of  Ahanlom.  And  he  tnnk  to  trife  (cf.  11  :  IS.  etc.)  Maacah  the  daughter  of 
Uriel  of  (iibcah."  The  text  of  I  Kings  15: 10  which  lay  before  the  Chronicler  had  pre^^erved 
the  correct  reading. 


218  Ezra  Studies 

The  most  important  illustrations  of  the  first  case  have  often 
been  described  at  length,  so  it  is  not  necessary  to  do  more  than 
mention  them  here.  The  chief  instance  is  the  story  of  the  coro- 
nation of  the  boy-king  Josiah,  in  II  Chron.  22: 10— 23:21.  The 
original  account,  given  in  II  Kings,  chap.  11,  is  here  rewritten  in 
order  to  make  it  correspond  to  the  recognized  usage  of  the  third 
century  b.  c.  The  Levites,  singers,  and  porters,  and  the  machin- 
ery of  the  later  temple  service,  are  now  introduced.  It  was  possible 
to  do  this  without  omitting  more  than  a  very  little  of  the  original 
narrative;  accordingly,  the  changes  made  by  the  Chronicler 
consist  chiefly  in  additions,  as  may  be  seen  in  KittePs  polychrome 
CJironiclcs/'  The  passage  which  almost  immediately  follows, 
2-1,:  4-14,  shows  a  different  problem  and  therefore  a  different  mode 
of  procedure.  The  older  account,  II  Kings  12:5-17,  in  the 
most  of  its  essential  features  runs  directly  contrary  to  the 
views  and  customs  of  the  Chronicler's  day,  in  a  very  disturbing 
manner."  The  whole  passage  might  have  been  simply  omitted  by 
the  Chronicler;  but  it  offered  some  very  interesting  suggestions, 
and,  what  is  more,  the  impression  given  by  the  book  of  Kings 
really  needed  to  be  "corrected."  This  was  not  a  case  where  a 
few  omissions,  or  any  number  of  additions,  would  be  of  any  use; 
the  only  possible  way  of  dealing  with  the  passage  was  to  rewrite 
it  thoroughly,  giving  it  a  new  form,  and  therefore  a  new  meaning, 
in  practically  every  verse.  The  Chronicler  would  never  change 
the  form  extensively  where  the  meaning  remained  unchanged. 
The  only  cause  for  wonder  here  is,  that  he  has  managed  to  retain 
so  much  (about  three  dozen  words)  of  the  original.'"  This  is  the 
only  instance  of  just  this  nature.  Another  good  example  of  the 
Chronicler's  free  treatment  of  his  material  in  the  interest  of  his 
greater  purpose  is  found  in  his  account  of  the  bringing  of  the  ark 
to  Jerusalem.  The  first  part  of  the  story,  I  Chron.  13:6-14, 
can  be  left  as  it  was  in  II  Sam.  r):2-ll,  though  a  special  intro- 

lOKittol's  edition,  however,  is  an  unsafe  guide.  His  overliniug  of  words  and  pas- 
sages is  usually  misleading,  and  so  also  is  his  use  of  colors,  other  than  the  light  red  which 
marks  passages  taken  from  Genesis,  Samuel,  and  Kings.  The  Chronicler's  authorship  of 
the  passage  I  Chron.  23:24-32,  for  example,  is  manifest  in  nearly  every  lino. 

11  See,  for  example,  Kittel's  Comm.,  p.  149,  where  the  various  points  of  difficulty  are 
mentioned  in  detail. 

i2Benzinger,  Comm.,  p.  113,  makes  the  following  rather  careless  comment  on  this  pas- 
sage: "  Im  Unterschied  von  der  Athaljageschichte  zeigt  sich  diese  Erzahlung  auch  in  der 
Form  unabhangig  von  Reg;  der  Text  von  Reg  ist  hier  gar  nicht  benutzt,  vielmehr  haben  wir 
eine  ganz  sclbstandige  Erzahlung  vor  uns.  Das  ist  nicht  die  Arbeitswoise  von  Chr  [ !],  son- 
dern  er  hat  die  Geschichte  so  schon  in  seiner  Quelle  vorgefunden."  As  though  an  unusual 
case  might  not  necessitate  au  unusual  method. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         219 

duction  to  it  has  to  be  written.  But  iu  the  Litter  part,  15:25-28, 
the  text  of  II  Sam.  0:12-15  requires  considerable  revision  to 
bring  it  into  accordance  with  the  Levitical  ritual.  I  Chron.  21:1- 
30,  again,  is  a  most  instructive  example  of  free  editing.  It  is  the 
narrative  of  David's  sin  in  numbering  the  people,  and  his  piir- 
chase  of  the  threshing-tloor  of  Oman  the  Jebusite.  The  original 
story,  II  Sam.  24:1-25,  was  unobjectionable  so  far  as  it  went,  and 
the  Chronicler  retains  the  greater  part  of  it.  But  to  his  mind  it 
fell  short  of  doing  justice  to  the  theme.  This  was  the  time  when 
King  David  was  led  to  choose  the  spot  on  which  the  temple 
was  afterward  built,  and  therefore  one  of  the  most  momen- 
tous occasions  in  all  the  history  of  Jerusalem.  The  Chronicler's 
imagination  was  aroused,  and  he  embellishes  the  tale  in  character- 
istic manner.  When  it  leaves  his  hands,  it  has  become  more 
impressive ;  the  scenes  are  more  dramatic,  and  the  incidents  more 
striking;  and  in  numerous  places  the  language  has  been  altered 
in  such  a  way  as  to  increase  the  interest  of  the  tale.''^  David  sees 
the  destroying  angel  in  the  heavens  with  his  drawn  sword  stretched 
over  Jerusalem ;  Oman  also  sees  the  angel,  while  his  four  sons 
(unknown  to  the  original  narrative)  hide  themselves  in  terror; 
and  so  on.  Every  feature  of  this  embellishment  is  in  the  Chron- 
icler's own  unmistakable  manner.  The  story  of  Josiah's  reforms, 
told  in  II  Chron.,  chap.  34,  is  altered  from  the  account  in  Kings 
in  much  the  same  way  as  the  story  of  the  coronation  of  Joash  in 
chap.  23.  The  older  narrative,  II  Kings  22:1  —  23:20,  is 
improved  upon  by  the  introduction  of  the  Levites,  as  well  as  the 
singers  and  porters.  The  long  account  of  the  removal  of  the 
abominations  from  the  land,  told  in  II  Kings  23:4-20,  is  con- 
densed into  four  verses  (4-7),  and  transposed  in  order  to  show 
that  the  king  instituted  these  reforms  before  the  finding  of  the 
book  of  the  law.  The  wording  of  the  narrative  in  Kings  is 
retained  as  far  as  possible. 

The  extensive  alterations  of  the  second  class,  namely  abridg- 
ments, are  fewer  in  number.  In  some  cases,  where  the  material 
of  the  older  history  was  extended  over  more  space  than  the 
Chronicler  could  well  give  to  it,  he  presents  a  mere  summary. 
One  example  of  this  proceeding  has  just  been  given,  namely  II 
Chron.  34:4-7,  which  is  a  condensation  of  the  account  of  Josiah's 

I'The  Chronicler  is  not  long-windod,  he  is  usually  concise;  and  in  a  good  many  places 
he  showa  that  he  has  the  power  of  suggesting  a  scene  with  sufficient  clearness  by  the  use  of 
half  a  dozen  words,  where  most  authors  would  jwed  as  many  as  sentences. 


220  Ezra  Studies 

reforms  given  in  II  Kings  23:J:-20.  Another  case  is  II  Chron 
22:7-9,  where  matter  relating  chiefly  to  the  Northern  King- 
dom—  and  therefore  not  wanted  —  has  been  reduced  to  the  small- 
est possible  compass,  giving  only  a  bare  statement  of  the  events 
which  concerned  the  king  of  Judah.  Verse  7  summarizes  II 
Kings  9:1-26,  vs.  8  is  the  abridgment  of  II  Kings  10:ll-l-t,  and 
vs.  9  is  that  of  II  Kings  9:27  f.  In  this  case  it  seems  plain  that 
the  Chronicler  is  abridging  the  narrative  of  Kings  from  memory, 
as  indeed  we  might  expect  that  he  would.'*  Still  another  example 
is  the  story  of  Sennacherib  and  Hezekiah,  as  told  in  II  Chron. 
32:1-23.  Here  again  the  Chronicler  abridges  from  memory. 
The  original  narrative,  II  Kings  18:13 — 19:37,'^  was  much  too 
extended  for  his  purpose,  and  contained  many  things  which  he 
can  have  had  no  wish  to  reproduce.  On  the  other  hand,  the  reign 
of  Hezekiah  was  a  very  important  one  in  his  scheme  of  the  history, 
and  the  events  of  this  siege,  which  were  very  well  known,  could 
not  be  passed  over  altogether.  So  he  tells  the  story  briefly  in  his 
own  words,  making  it  over  entirely,  retaining  neither  the  form  nor 
the  substance  of  the  older  narrative.  This  again  is  an  altogether 
unusual  case,  though  it  presents  no  difficulty. 

The  following  are  instances  of  the  third  class,  where  the 
Chronicler  improvises  at  some  length  on  a  brief  theme  provided 
by  his  source.  The  short  story  of  Josiah  and  Necho  of  Egypt, 
told  in  II  Chron.  35 :  20-24,  is  typical  of  the  cases  in  which  the 
Chronicler  builds  up  an  edifying  tale  of  his  own  on  the  basis  of  a 
few  words  in  the  older  history.  In  the  first  place,  the  reason  of 
the  king's  fate  is  made  plain:  he  had  disobeyed  the  command  of 
God.  Then  the  details  of  the  brief  story  show  the  writer's  passion 
for  the  picturesque,  and  the  extreme  vividness  with  which  he 
himself  saw,  in  imagination,  the  things  which  he  merely  sug- 
gests to  his  readers.  In  this  case,  he  has  introduced  features  of 
another  narrative  which  ranks  among  the  most  dramatic  in  the 
books  of  Kings,  namely  the  story  of  the  death  of  Ahab  at  Ramoth- 

'iKittel,  Comm.,  p.  145,  and  Benzinger,  Comm.,  pp.  110  f.,  are  wrong  in  thinking  that  the 
narrative  in  Chron.  contradicts  that  in  Kings.  '"Samaria"  in  22:9  is  the  province,  just  as 
in  II  Chron.  25:13,  Ezr.  4:10  (see  my  note  on  that  passage,  above,  p.  186),  Neh.  3:34,  etc., 
not  the  city.  There  is  no  discrepancy  whatever  between  the  two  accounts.  It  is  neither 
said  nor  even  implied  in  Chron.  that  the  events  of  vs.  8  were  chronologically  subsequent  to 
those  of  vs.  7;  on  the  contrary,  vs.  7  is  inten>ied  as  the  general  summary  of  the  whole  matter. 
Nor  is  it  said  (as  Benzinger  asserts)  that  Ahaziah  was  buried  in  Samaria( ! ). 

1-^  The  Chronicler  had  before  him  also  Isaiah  36-39,  as  is  evident  from  II  Chron.  32:32 
(where  wo  must  read  byi .  as  is  shown  both  by  the  context  and  also  by  the  witness  of  the 
Greek,  Syriac,  and  Latin  versions).  In  all  probability,  the  book  of  Isaiah  which  he  had  was 
of  the  jame  extent  and  form  as  our  own. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         2'21 

Gilead,  I  Kings  22  :  29-38.  The  Chronicler  had  incorporated  it 
in  his  own  history,  II  Chron.  18:28-3-1:;  and  it  seems  to  have 
been  again  suggested  to  him  here  by  the  statement  regarding 
Josiah,  in  II  Kings  23  :  30,  that  the  dying  king  was  brought  back 
from  the  battlefield  to  Jerusalem  in  his  chariot.  This  brought  the 
whole  scene  before  his  eyes,  and  he  sketched  it  afresh.  The 
incident  of  the  disguise'"  would  suit  here  very  well,  as  it  would 
show  why  the  king's  attendants  were  permitted  to- take  him  away 
from  the  field  of  battle.  As  in  the  former  instance,  the  king 
was  slain  by  random  arrows,  shot  by  archers  who  did  not  know  his 
rank.  The  fact  that  the  story  of  Ahab  was  in  the  C^hronicler's 
mind  is  shown  further  by  one  striking  verbal  reminiscence,  the 
phrase  Ti"'!;""  "D,  whose  verb  occurs  only  in  these  two  passages. 
A  much  more  prominent  instance  belonging  to  this  class  is  furnished 
by  II  Chron.,  chaps.  2  and  3,  the  account  of  the  building  of 
Solomon's  temple.  The  motive  for  editorial  alteration  here  was 
of  course  the  same  as  that  which  we  saw  at  work  in  I  Chron.  21 ; 
the  older  narrative  was  too  meager  for  the  theme.  In  that  instance, 
a  few  additions  here  and  there  sufficed;  in  the  case  now  before  us, 
the  Chronicler  took  the  history  into  his  own  hands,  building  up  two 
new  chapters  on  the  basis  of  materials  contained  in  I  Kings, 
chaps.  5  ff.  Especially  characteristic  is  the  way  in  which  the  cor- 
respondence between  Solomon  and  Hiram  of  Tyre  is  expanded 
(of.  the  mention  made  above,  p.  l-tC)).  A  very  good  illustration  of 
the  Chronicler's  literary  skill  is  his  transposition  of  the  first  men- 

"'The  word  UJDnnn  ill  ^J  '■  -'^  '"'i^  often  been  clialleDKed,  partly  because  the  "disguise" 
comes  so  unexpectedly,  and  partly  because  the  versions  do  nt)t  give  the  usual  equivalent  of 
this  word.  The  Greek  of  Theodotioa  renders  as  though  pTFIPn  stood  in  the  text.  I  Esdr' 
1 :26  {(TTixei-pd)  andthe  Vulgate  of  Chron.  (praeparavit)  render  TCSnnrii  but  with  an  attempt 
to  keep  near  to  the  usual  root-moaniug  of  TCSn  .  "seek."  The  Syriac  is  ambiguous  — very 
likely  led  astray  by  the  Greek,  as  fco  often  happens— but  certainly  did  not  have  pTnnn  ■ 
The  massoretic  reading  is  undoubtedly  right,  and  in  all  likelihood  it  is  the  reading  which 
lay  before  every  one  of  the  translators  named,  even  Theodotion;  though  in  this  last  case 
the  Hebrew  may  have  been  foolishly  corrected. 

Verse  21  has  given  the  commentators  unnecessary  trouble,  for  the  text  is  perfectly  sound. 
The  seutence:  ip'anb'a  IT^Z  55?  "^D  nVn  HPS  l'^';?  Sib  must  be  rendered:  "Not 
against  thee   (am  I  coming)  toilay,  but  to  the  country  with  which  I  am  at  war."     p.l^ 

Tl''On>"G=      .•<■,  ~^    \lk^.  TheomissioDof  the  Hebrew  equivalent  of  the  words  in  parenthesis 

is  nothing  unusual  in  Cliron. ;  see  Driver's  list  of  the  Chronicler's  usages,  no.  27.  Theodotitm 
probably  rendered  freely,  but  his  Hebrew  text  may  have  been  corrupt.  I  Esdr.  and  Jerome 
try  to  make  ipTSn'^'D  *  ho  subject  of  the  sentence,  and  then  each  attempts  in  his  own  fashion 
to  solve  the  resulting  difliculty.  (The  "critical"  apparatus  in  Kittel's  HiOfia  Hehraica  sug- 
gests that  the  Vulgate  read  "inS  fT^D.  which  in  turn  might  have  been  a  corruption  of 
I^TJJX  D''^  '•  Further,  wo  are  directi-d  by  this  same  apparatus  to  read  HPii  ""IN  in  place 
of  the  pronoun  HFlS  •  Kut  even  the  Chronicler  himself  would  not  have  perpetrated  such 
curious  Hebrew  as  this.) 


222  EzEA  Studies 

tion  of  Hiram  (or  Huram)/'  the  Phoenician  craftsman,  from 
the  account  of  the  actual  building  of  the  temple  (I  Kings  7: 13  f.) 
to  the  letter  written  by  the  Tyrian  king,  II  Chron.  2:  12  f.  Aside 
from  these  examples  taken  from  the  Chronicler's  narrative,  there 
are  others,  equally  instructive,  which  show  how  freely  he  could  deal 
with  the  statistics  which  came  under  his  hand;  using  what  he 
needed,  and  manufacturing  what  he  pleased,  always  with  his  eye 
fixed  either  on  the  actual  circumstances  and  regulations  of  the  time 
in  which  he  lived,  or  else  on  certain  ideal  conditions  suggested  by 
those  existing  in  his  own  day.  Thus,  in  I  Chron.  27:2-15  he 
takes  names  which  are  given  in  II  Sam.,  chap.  23,  and  builds 
about  them  in  characteristic  fashion.  What  he  aimed  to  establish 
here  was  the  regular  monthly  succession  of  these  twelve  great 
captains,  each  with  his  twenty-four  thousand  men  (the  Chronicler 
is  especially  fond  of  multiples  of  twelve).  Another  example  of  the 
same  sort  is  I  Chron.  6:  46-48  (61-03),  which  is. a  free  composition 
by  the  Chronicler  on  the  basis  of  material  in  Joshua  21 :  5-7. 

This  will  suffice  for  a  description  of  the  Chronicler's  editorial 
proceedings  in  the  first  part  of  his  history,  from  Adam  to  Nebu- 
chadnezzar. As  was  stated  at  the  outset,  he  ordinarily  tran- 
scribes his  source  practically  unaltered,  selecting  the  chapters 
which  he  needs,  and  transferring  them  in  solid  blocks  with  sub- 
stantially the  original  wording.  It  remains  to  ask  whether  the 
edited  portions,  where  the  original  source  is  expanded  or 
rewritten,  are  entirely  the  work  of  his  own  hand,  or  partly  that  of 
some  other  editor.  It  often  happens,  of  course,  that  definite 
marks  of  the  Chronicler's  presence  are  not  to  be  found.  His 
peculiarities  of  style  and  linguistic  usage  are  strongly  marked,  it 
is  true,  but  such  peculiarities  generally  have  little  opportunity  to 
show  themselves  in  passages  which  contain  merely  a  refashioning 
— even  a  thorough  refashioning — of  older  material.  Neverthe- 
less, the  purely  linguistic  evidence  of  his  handiwork  is  satisfactory; 

"The  Chronicler  wrote  in  every  case  "Huram,"  for  botli  the  king  and  the  craftsman. 
The  name  of  the  latter,  which  has  caused  great  discussion,  is  found  in  II  Chron.  2 :  12  ( corre- 
sponding to  I  Kings  7:13),  4:11,  16  (=1  Kings  7:40,  4.5).  In  II  Chron.  2:12,  IIS  D"nnb 
must  be  rendered:  ''Namely  Huram,  my  trusted  counselor;"  and  in  II  Chron.  4:10  the 
translation  of  tlie  words  rTQ^TU  "7*12^  T'lSN  DIIH  must  be:  '' Huram,  the  trusted  coun- 
selor of  King  Solomon;"  for  tiie  peculiar  construction  in  this  latter  case,  paralleled  several 
times  in  the  later  Hebrew  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  especially  in  Chron.,  see  KOnig,  Syntax, 
pp.  2.56  f.  The  Hebrew  text  (saving  the  variations  Hiram— Hlrom— Huram)  is  correct  in  all 
of  the  six  passages  involved.  It  is  by  one  of  the  Chronicler's  best  literary  touches  that  the 
man  whom  he  had  made  King  Hiram  describe  as  his  own  "intimate  adviser"  is  later  on  styled 
the  "  intimate  adviser  "  of  King  Solomon. 


The  Chronicler  as  Edit(3r  and  as  Narrator         223 

a  tell-tale  word  or  construction  appears  every  now  and  then, 
especiRlly  in  the  verses  which  have  been  interpolated  by  him. 
But  far  more  important  than  any  testimony  of  words  and  phrases 
is  the  evidence  of  the  editorial  purpose.  We  have  before 
us  a  man  in  a  definite  historical  situation,  with  a  great  problem 
confronting  him  which  we  can  at  least  partially  understand.  We 
know  something  of  the  surroundings  in  which  he  lived,  and  a 
little  concerning  his  personal  sympathies  and  prejudices.  He  had 
before  him  our  Old  Testament  historical  books,  and  wished  to  use 
them  as  a  foundation  for  a  new  history  of  his  own.  He  preferred 
to  make  his  extracts  in  the  easiest  way  —  by  mere  transcription  — 
as  a  general  rule;  but  where  alteration  was  necessary  or  desirable 
for  his  })urposes,  he  was  ready  to  take  any  liberty  with  his  sources 
(as  every  Old  Testament  scholar  recognizes  in  such  cases  as  the 
story  of  David  bringing  back  the  ark,  the  account  of  the  corona- 
tion of  Joash,  the  frequent  substitution  of  very  large  numbers,  and 
so  on).  The  question  is,  then,  whether  this  editor  of  whom 
we  know  can  reasonably  be  supposed  to  have  done  all  the  editing 
and  expanding  of  Gen. -Sam. -Kings  which  we  see  befpre  us  in  the 
books  of  Chronicles.  And  the  answer  is  plain.  There  is  no 
internal  evidence,  anywhere,  of  an  intermediate  source 
between  our  Old  Testament  books  and  the  Chronicler. 
On  the  contrary,  every  minor  or  major  alteration  which  appears 
in  I  and  II  Chron.  finds  its  obvious  explanation  in  the  Chronicler's 
aims  which  have  already  been  indicated.  There  is  not  even  one 
passage  in  which  his  proceeding  is  hard  to  understand.  As  for 
the  "sources" — a  long  list  of  them — -which  he  names  from  time 
to  time  (though  he  nowhere  directly  claims  to  have  used  any  of 
them!),  they  are  a  mere  show,  as  will  appear  presently.  He  him- 
self, then,  is  the  only  editor  with  wliom  we  have  to  deal. 

2.   Ill  Ezr(t-Ncheiiii(Oi 

In  the  Chronicler's  history  of  the  Jews  after  the  exile  we  are 
obliged,  unfortunately,  to  depend  chiefly  upon  internal  evidence 
for  our  conclusions  as  to  the  sources  which  he  used.  We  have 
merely  what  he  himself  has  given  us,  and  from  that  and  our 
knowledg(^  of  his  habits  in  the  pre-exilic  history  wc  must  form  our 
opinion  of  his  editorial  proceedings  here. 

We  know  that  he  has  used  at  least  two  documents;  namely,  an 
Aramaic  story,  Ezr.  ^rS — G:18,  written  by  one  of  liis  own  school, 


224  Ezra  Studies 

and  probably  of  his  own  generation;  and  the  "Words  of  Nehe- 
miah,"  including  (as  I  have  shown  elsewhere)  the  greater  part  of 
the  first  six  chapters  of  Nehemiah.^*  The  methods  which  he 
employs,  in  incorporating  these  documents  in  his  narrative,  are, 
so  far  as  we  are  able  to  judge,  identical  with  those  employed  in 
the  books  of  Chronicles. 

It  certainly  seems  to  be  the  case  that  both  documents  have 
been  left  untouched  throughout  the  greater  part  of  their  extent. 
I  have  already  discussed  elsewhere  the  traces  of  the  Chroidcler's 
hand  in  the  Aramaic  story  (see  above,  pp.  158  ft'.).  From  Ezr.  4:8 
to  (3:8,  and  again  through  6:11-14,  there  is  no  sign  of  his  pres- 
ence. It  is  quite  possible  that  single  words,  or  even  phrases, 
may  have  been  altered  or  added  by  him,  here  and  there;  just  as 
we  have  seen  him  make  insignificant  verbal  changes  in  some  of 
the  chapters  in  Sam.  and  Kings  which  he  transcribes.  But  we 
may  be  sure  that  he  has  contributed  nothing  of  importance  to  the 
Aramaic  passages  just  named,  and  it  is  quite  likely  that  he  has 
not  even  changed  a  single  word.  Again,  in  Neh.  1:1  —  2:6; 
2:95-20;  4:1  —  6:19,  we  seem  to  have  solid  blocks  of  the  Nehe- 
miah  narrative,  transmitted  with  little  or  no  editorial  alteration. 
Here  also  we  must  conclude  that  if  the  Chronicler  took  any  inde- 
pendent part,  it  was  too  slight  to  deserve  consideration.  In  one 
place,  5:13,  we  seem  to  have  one  of  those  minor  interpolations 
which  he  occasionally  makes,  namely  the  phrase:  "And  all  the  con- 
gregation said.  Amen,  and  praised  Yahw6." '"'  A  few  other  things, 
here  and  there,  appear  to  give  evidence  of  his  presence,  but  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  go  beyond  the  mere  suspicion.  The  language 
and  style  throughout  these  long  sections  are  totally  different  from 
those  of  the  Chronicler,'"'"  and  it  would  be  out  of  the  question  to 
think  of  him  as  the  author  of  any  extended  passage. 

The  way  in  which  the  Chronicler  makes  considerable 
editorial  additions  to  these  two  documents  in  Ezra-Neh. 
corresponds  exactly  to  his  mode  of  proceeding  in  the  books  of 
Chronicles.  The  Aramaic  story  in  its  original  form  (as  I  have 
elsewhere  argued;  loc.  cit,  p.  161)  probably  began  with  the  words: 
"  Jw  the  (lays  of  Artaxeroces  the  kiiifj  wrote  Rehum  the  reporter 

i'*Soo  my  Composition  of  Ezra-Neh.,  pp.  35-49;  and  above,  pp.  157-01. 

I'J  Composition,  p.  39. 

20This,  of  course,  does  not  apply  to  tlie  prayer,  1:5-11,  which  is  built  up  of  stock 
phrases,  mostly  Deuteronomic,  and  might  as  well  have  been  written  by  the  Chronicler  as  by 
anyone  else. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator        225 

and  Shimshai  the  scribe/'  etc.,  as  in  Ezr.  4:8.  The  Chronicler 
composed  two  introductory  verses,  I),  7,  at  the  same  time 
altering  slightly  the  beginning  of  the  incorporated  passage.  This 
is  just  what  he  does  over  and  over  again,  all  through  the  earlier 
part  of  his  history;  see,  for  example,  I  Chron.  11:10,  13:1  flF., 
II  Chron.  1:1  ff.,  2:1,  18:1  f.,  2-t:-t  f.,  34:14.  In  the  letter  of 
Darius  to  Tattenai  and  his  associates  he  has  made  one  of  his 
characteristic  interpolations,  Ezr.  G:9f.  This  passage,  brief  as 
it  is,  is  filled  with  the  tokens  of  his  presence,  as  I  have  elsewhere 
shown.  It  is  not  a  case  of  revision,  both  verses  are  entirely  his 
own.  Brief  passages  of  this  sort  are  interpolated  in  many  places 
in  the  pre-exilic  history ;  with  this  particular  instance  cf .  especially 
II  Chron.  2:9,  14,  observing  the  addition  to  the  text  of  Kings. 
At  the  end  of  the  Aramaic  story,  moreover,  the  Chronicler  appends 
a  passage  of  his  own,  Ezr.  (3:15-18,  filled  to  the  brim  with  char- 
acteristic material.  So  with  the  additions  to  the  Nehemiah  story. 
Three  verses,  Neh.  2:1 -9a,  are  interpolated  at  the  point  where 
the  king  grants  his  permission.  The  Chronicler  saw  a  good 
opportunity  to  introduce  one  or  two  features  in  which  he  else- 
where shows  great  interest.  Cf.  especially  I  Esdr.  4:476-56 
(and  my  notes  on  the  passage,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  125  fP.),  and  see  also 
my  Composition,  p.  86,  where  the  numerous  parallels  are  indicated. 
His  always  lively  imagination  shows  itself  here  in  the  same  vari- 
eties of  embellishment  with  which  we  are  familiar.  He  gives  the 
name  (his  favorite  "Asaph"!  )  of  the  keeper  of  the  royal  forest, 
and  shows  his  customary  interest  in  the  buildings  of  Jerusalem ; 
see  above,  p.  216,  In  chap,  8,  vss.  1-32  are  from  the  Chronicler's 
hand.  This  passage  appears  to  be  an  independent  creation  of  his, 
not  based  on  anything  written  by  Nehemiah,  and  it  will  therefore 
be  mentioned  later.  The  immediately  following  passage,  3:83-38 
(English  trans.,  4:1-6),  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  at  least 
in  part  the  work  of  the  Chronicler,  I  formerly  thought  {Camp., 
pp.  88,  50)  that  the  most  of  it  might  be  saved  for  Nehemiah,  but 
further  study  has  convinced  me  that  the  six  verses  are  all  from 
the  Chronicler's  hand.  The  })assage  sounds  like  his  writing 
throughout  its  whole  extent,  but  the  subject-matter  is  so  unusual 
that  characteristic  words  and  phrases  are  not  to  be  found.  With 
ri'^n ,  "restore,"  in  vs.  34  cf,  I  Chron,  11:8,  The  collocation  of 
the  two  words  HTS  and  n^2"JJ  occurs  elsewhere  only  in  II  Chron. 
28:14.     And  what   was  the   "rn'j»//   of   Samaria,"    before   which 


226  Ezra  Studies 

Sanaballat  made  his  speech  (vs.  34)  ?''  The  Chronicler's  imagi- 
nation pictured  a  standing  army  of  hostile  Samaritans;  it  is  less 
likely  that  Nehemiah  himself  would  have  used  the  phrase  b^" 
"pI'i'vT.  Later  than  this  (4:2)  he  speaks  of  a  coalition  and 
the  collecting  of  an  army  to  come  against  Jerusalem,  which  is 
something  different.  It  is  to  be  observed,  furthermore,  that  the 
three  passages,  2:19  f.,  3:33  ff.,  and  4:1  ff.,  repeat  one  another 
rather  awkwardly,  and  that  the  awkwardness  is  very  much  in- 
creased when  the  Chronicler's  interpolation,  3:1-32,  is  removed. 
And  finally,  in  regard  to  vss.  36  f.  Siegfried,  Comm.,  writes: 
"Neh.  bewegt  sich  durchaus  in  den  Wendungen  der  nach- 
exilischen  Psalmendichtung."  This  is  not  altogether  easy  to 
believe  of  Neheuiiah,  but  we  know  it  to  be  true  of  the  Chronicler; 
and  to  the  latter  it  seems  best,  for  every  reason,  to  attribute  the 
whole  passage.^"  His  purpose  in  inserting  it  is  precisely  the  same 
which  he  had  in  inserting  I  Chron.  12:38-40,  or  II  Chron. 
21:12-15,  or  the  many  other  equally  striking  episodes;  namely, 
the  purpose  of  a  first-class  narrator  to  take  full  advantage  of  the 
most  important  situations.  The  passage  6:16-19  I  am  also 
inclined  to  attribute  to  the  Chronicler  for  reasons  which  I  will 
not  take  the  time  to  discuss  here.'' 

Cases  of  thoroughgoing  alteration  of  material  are  of 
course  not  to  be  found  in  Ezra-Nehemiah.  It  is  not  likely  that 
any  such  alteration  took  place  here ;  nor,  if  it  had,  should  we  be 
able  to  recognize  it.  The  Aramaic  story  would  never  have  been 
corrected  in  the  interest  of  the  Chronicler's  aim;  its  tendency, 
from  beginning  to  end,  was  substantially  the  same  as  his  own. 
There  is  nothing  whatever  to  indicate  that  it  has  been  either 
abridged  or  expanded  by  him,  or  that  any  change  in  it  was  made, 
aside  from  the  few  additions  which  have  already  been  described. 
So  also  with  the  Nehemiah  narrative.  If  there  has  been  any 
more  extensive  editing  than  that  which  has  just  been  pointed 

21  Of  course  it  is  probable,  as  I  have  said  before,  that  the  Sanaballat  of  the  Elephantine 
papyri  is  the  one  mentioned  by  Nehemiah. 

221  formerly  thought  (Conip.,  pp.  35,  47)  that  the  presence  of  the  word  D1~in''. 
"Jews."  testified  against  the  Chronicler's  authorship.  This  is  not  the  case,  however;  he 
uses  the  word  in  I  Esdr.  4:49,  50,  as  well  as  in  Neh.  13:23.  It  is  merely  accidental  that  he 
does  not  use  it  oftencr. 

23 It  is  quite  likely,  further,  that  the  prayer  of  Nehemiaii,  1:5-11<(,  has  at  least  been 
edited  by  the  Chronicler.  Among  the  occasional  words  and  phrases  which  I  have  suspected 
of  belonging  to  the  latter  writer  are:  the  name,  "  Hanani,"  in  1 :2  (cf.  7:2) ;  possibly  2: 13  f.?; 
thelast  clause  of  2:20;  the  "  Asiidodites"  in4:l;  and  the  whole  middle  part  of  5:14,  from 
n:T2J^  to  n^iUy  (cf.  13:6).    The  last-named  passage  is  an  important  one. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         227 

out,  we  have  at  least  no  evidence  of  the  fact.  It  appears  that 
Nehemiah's  own  personal  memoir  ended  either  with  G:15  or  with 
G:19.  If  the  following  chapters,  7,  11,  12,  and  13,'*  are  in  any 
way  based  on  material  originally  provided  by  Nehemiah,  they  at 
all  events  contain  nothing  to  indicate  the  fact.  On  the  contrary, 
they  seem  to  be  filled  full  with  the  Chronicler's  own  familiar 
themes  and  materials  (not  at  all  like  the  things  in  which  Nehe- 
miah himself  shows  interest!),  and  are  couched  throughout  in 
his  own  language.  Knowing,  as  we  do,  his  method  of  writing 
the  pre-exilic  part  of  the  history,  where  he  originated  by  himself 
about  as  much  material  as  he  obtained  from  others  (see  below),  no 
theory  of  editorial  alteration  in  the  last  chapters  of  Nehemiah  can 
have  scientific  value. 

III.       THE    CHRONICLER    AS    INDEPENDENT    NARRATOR 

1.   The  Sources,  Real  and  Imaginary,  in  I  and  II  Chvon. 

The  sixty-five  chapters  which  make  up  the  books  of  I  and  II 
Chron.  occupy  fifty  pages  in  Kittel's  polychrome  edition.  Of 
this  amount,  nearly  one  half  is  printed  in  plain  black  and  white 
by  Kittel.  That  is,  about  one  half  of  the  material  of  this  impor- 
tant document  is  known  to  us  only  as  it  comes  from  the  hand  of 
the  Chronicler,  being  altogether  independent  of  any  other  docu- 
ments with  which  we  are  acquainted.  Whoever  approaches  the 
book  with  the  idea  that  it  is  merely  an  edition  of  the  canon- 
ical history  (as  it  is  sometimes  styled)  will  be  amazed  to  find 
out  how  much  of  this  added  matter  there  is.  And  the  character 
of  the  matter,  if  anyone  examines  it  carefully,  will  soon  tell  its 
own  story  in  unequivocal  fashion.  It  does  not  consist  of  mere 
appendages  to  the  older  history,  //  is  itself  the  importatd  part. 
The  whole  work  was  planned  and  executed  for  the  sake 
of  these  independent  chapters  and  paragraphs.  Its  author, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  a  man  with  a  definite  and  important  aim, 
and  it  was  just  here  that  his  purpose  was  carried  out. 

The  Chronicler,  as  he  wrote,  had  before  him  the  Pentateuch, 
and  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  from  Joshua  to 
II  Kings;  the  books  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  and  probably  all,  or 
nearly  all,  of  the  other  prophetical  writings  known  to  us ;  also  the 
greater  part  of  the  Psalter.     So  far  as  we  are  able  to  judge,  the 

'-*A8  I  have  shown  elsewhere,  chaps.  8-10  originally  belonged  to  the  Ezra  story,  and 
were  transferred  to  the  book  of  Nehemiah  through  tlie  error  of  a  copyist. 


228  Ezra  Studies 

form  in  which  he  had  these  books  was  substantially  identical  with 
the  form  in  which  we  have  them  now.  Against  the  probability 
that  any  other  historical  material  of  value  was  at  his  command 
stand  some  very  potent  facts,  as  many  scholars  have  remarked. 
The  Jews  of  the  third  century  B.  c.  did  not  even  have  in  their 
possession  historical  traditions  regarding  the  tirst  half  of  the 
Persian  period  (see  above,  p.  156),  to  say  nothing  of  a  still  earlier 
time.  In  the  books  of  Samuel  and  Kings,  which  were  given 
their  present  form  some  considerable  time  after  the  fall  of  Jerusa- 
lem, was  embodied  all  that  was  known  of  the  history  of  the 
Hebrew  kingdoms;  there  is  no  likelihood  whatever  that  other 
records,  not  used  by  the  editors  of  Kings,  were  in  existence  and 
survived  until  the  Chronicler's  day. 

Nevertheless  the  Chronicler,  in  a  series  of  allusions  scattered 
through  his  book,  presents  us  with  the  names  of  a  most  impres- 
sive collection  of  historical  works,  of  which  certainly  the  most, 
and  probably  all,  are  otherwise  unknown  to  us.  These  are  the 
following: 

1.  The  Acts  (nm)  of  Samuel  the  Seer.     I  Chron.  29:29. 

2.  The  Acts  of  Nathan  the  Prophet.  I  Chron.  29:29,  II 
Chron.  9:29. 

3.  The  Acts  of  Gad  the  Seer.     I  Chron.  29:29. 

4.  The  Prophecy  of  Ahijah  the  Shilonite.      II  Chron.  9:29. 

5.  The  Vision  of  Iddo  the  Seer  concerning  Jeroboam  the  son  of 
Nebat.  II  Chron.  9:29.  (The  writings  named  thus  far  are  said 
by  the  Chronicler  to  contain  information  regarding  the  deeds  of 
David  or  of  Solomon.) 

6.  The  Acts  of  Shemaiah  the  Prophet  and  of  Iddo  the  Seer. 
II  Chron.  12:15. 

7.  The  Teaching  ("^rnT^)''  of  the  Prophet  Iddo.  II  Chron. 
13:22. 

8.  The  Acts  of  Jehu  the  son  of  Hanani,  "which  are  included 
in  the  Book  of  the  Kings  of  Israel."      II  Chron.  20:34:. 

9.  A  book  written  by  "Isaiah  the  son  of  Amoz,  the  prophet," 
containing  "the  rest  of  the  acts  of  Uzziah."     II  Chron.  20:22. 

10.  The    "acts   of    seers"   who   are    not    named.      II   Chron. 

2S  Tlie  precise  meaning  of  the  word,  occurring  liere  and  in  no.  15,  is  uncert  ain.  It  must 
at  any  rate  be  connected  with  the  common  use  of  the  verb  ^UlT  in  the  meaning  "search 
(fur  truth),"  "inquire  into,"  and  the  like.  Perhaps  originally  this  noun  formed  with  the 
prefix  ma-  denoted  the  "place  where  the  inquirer  is  to  search,"  and  thouce  "authoritative 
teaching."  It  is  hardly  safe  to  assume  that  the  word  in  these  two  passages  had  the  very 
same  connotation  as  the  later  tochiiical  term,  "  ntidrasl^." 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator        22l> 

33: lit.'"''     These  are  the  seers  who  lived  in  the  time  of  Manasseh, 
and  are  said  by  the  Chronicler  to  have  written  down  his  acts. 

11.  The  Book  of  the  Kings  of  Israel  and  Judali.  I  Chron. 
9:1,''  II  Chron.  27:7,  35:27.  It  is  possible  that  in  this  and  the 
three  (or  four)  following  numbers  we  have  merely  variations  of 
the  same  title.  It  is  plainly  not  oio-  Book  of  Kings  to  which 
reference  is  made;  see  especially  I  Chron.  1):1,  II  Chron.  20:34, 
27:7,  33:18,  30:8. 

12.  The  Book  of  the  Kings  of  Judah  and  Israel.  II  Chron. 
KkH,  25:20,  28:20,  32:32. 

13.  The  Book  of  the  Kings  of  Israel.  II  Chrun.  20:34:  (see 
the  reference  to  this  passage  above,  in  no.  11). 

14.  The  Acts  of  the  Kings  of  Israel.  II  Chron.  33:18.  Said 
to  contain  the  prayer  of  Manasseh,  and  the  words  of  the  seers  who 
warned  him. 

15.  The  Teacliing  it'\T2f''  of  the  Book  of  Kings.  II  Chron. 
24:27. 

The  Chronicler  nowhere  expressly  quotes  from  any  one  of 
these  works;  he  does  not  even  say  that  he  himself  made  use  of 
any  of  them  as  sources.  But  he  plainly  wishes  to  give  the 
impression  that  he  is  writing  with  authority,  and  concerning 
matters  which  were  well  known,  at  least  to  the  inner  cir- 
cle in  Jerusalem  which  preserved  the  true  tradition. 
Obviously,  some  of  these  titles  are  a  mere  literary  adornment, 
designed  to  give  the  impression  just  described,  and  any  close 
study  of  the  evidence  leads  to  the  same  conclusion  in  regard  to 
all  the  titles  in  the  list. 

The  material  which  has  come  to  us  only  through  the  books 
of  Chronicles  is  perfectly  homogeneous,  the  work  of  a  single  hand. 
It  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  any  part  of  it  is  excerpted,  as 
the  Chronicler  habitually  excerpts  from  the  sources  which  we 
know  him  to  have  used.  It  is  certainly  not  the  case  that  Samuel, 
Nathan,  Gad,  Ahijah,  Iddo,  Shemaiah,  Jehu,  Isaiah,  and  the 
authors  of  the  other  "sources,"  used  all  exactly  the  same  language 
and  style,  and  wrote  with  the  selfsame  tendency.  But  this  is  not 
all.     The  language,  style,  and  tendency,  throughout  these  long 

2«The  text  of  the  verse  seems  to  be  corrupt.  MT  and  .Jerome  road  "  Hi'zai,"  a  proper 
name.  Theodotion  probably  had  before  liim  CTin  (withmit  the  article),  and  this  is 
the  most  likely  reading;  of.  vs.  ix.    The  Syriac  has  "  Hanaii  the  prophet." 

'•''So,  of  course,  the  verse  must  be  punctuated,  as  in  all  the  old  versions. 

2»See  no.  7.  and  the  note  there. 


230  Ezra  Studies 

and  important  chapters  and  sections,  (ow  those  of  the  Chronider 
himself  and  of  no  one  else.  This  is  well  stated  by  Driver,  Encycl. 
Bibl.,  art.  "Chronicles,"  col.  772:  "The  style  of  the  Chronicler 
has  remarkable  peculiarities.  It  is  not  merely  that  it  presents 
characteristically  late  linguistic  novelties,    ....  but  it  has  also  a 

number   of   special   mannerisms So  constant   are    [these 

marks]  that  there  is  hardly  a  sentence,  7iot  excerpted  from  Samuel 
or  Kiiigs,'^  in  which  they  are  not  observable."  And  yet  Professor 
Driver,  sharing  the  traditional  disinclination  to  believe  that  the 
Chronicler  himself  invented  any  lo)ig  passages — though  he  sup- 
poses him  very  frequently  to  have  invented  shoii  ones! — expresses 
himself  as  follows  in  his  Introduction^,  p.  493.  After  drawing  the 
conclusion  that  all  this  added  matter  must  be  either  the  composition 
of  the  Chronicler  or  derived  from  a  contemporary  writing,  he  adds, 
in  a  footnote:  "The  former  alternative  is  decidedly  the  more 
probable;  but  the  latter  cannot  be  absolutely  excluded.  The  author 
of  the  'Midrash  of  the  Book  of  Kings'  inay,  for  instance,  have 
used  a  style  and  diction  similar  to  those  of  the  Chronicler."  But 
this  is  lame  reasoning.  What  logical  value  is  there  in  the  sug- 
gestion that  some  (why  not  all?)  of  the  added  matter  may  have 
been  composed  not  by  the  Chronicler,  but  by  another  writer  who 
wrote  at  the  same  time,  with  the  same  aim  [ibid.,  p.  498),  and 
employing  the  same  peculiar  language  and  style?  This  is  really 
a  reductio  ad  absuj-dnni.  It  is  time  that  scholars  were  done  with 
this  phantom  "source,"  of  which  the  internal  evidence  is  absolutely 
lacking,  and  the  external  evidence  is  limited  to  the  Chronicler's 
transparent  parading  of  "authorities;"  while  the  evidence  against 
it  is  overwhelming. ■'"  It  may  be  added,  that  the  hypothesis  of  a 
"midrashic"  source,  of  which  such  very  free  conjectural  use  has 
been  made  by  modern  scholars,  does  not  at  all  suffice  to  explain 
the  Chronicler's  added  matter.  The  latter  does  not  consist,  for 
the  most  part,  of  moral  and  religious  lessons,  nor  is  it  an  expansion 
or  explanation  of  an  older  text.  It  is  motived  history;  and  the 
one  thing  which  is  fundamental  to  it  everywhere  is  the  studied 
purpose  of  an  earnest  man.  Nothing  is  included  by  accident, 
nowhere  is  any  other  aim  than  the  Chronicler's  apparent.  What 
we  have  is  a  consistently  altered  picture  —  the  Chronicler's 
own  picture — of  the   whole  history,  every  single  portion  sup- 

'■^'■'Tho  italics  are  mine. 

:i'ilf  Clironicles  had  not  been  a  sadly  neglected  book,  these  manifestly  untenable  theories 
could  not  have  hold  the  field  for  so  long  a  time. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         231 

[Mjrting  and  supplementing  every  other  portion.  As  has  already 
been  said,  it  was  this  added  material  that  formed  the  all-iiii[M)rtant 
part  of  the  work. 

The  Old  Testament  writers,  in  their  methods  and  practices, 
seem  generally  to  have  followed  the  traditions  of  their  time;  and 
in  thus  making  an  impressive  (though  equivocal)  show  of  authori- 
ties, the  Chronicler  was  doing  what  many  ancient  writers  of  note 
have  don^."  What  he  aimed  at  was  partly  literary  adornment,^' 
but  partly  also  an  apologetic  advantage.  He  certainly  could  not 
count  on  the  immediate  success  of  his  improved  version  of  the 
sacred  history,  and  it  might  be  that  even  these  allusions  to  ancient 
writings,  presumably  known  in  Jerusalem,  would  be  of  assistance 
against  the  rivals  of  the  Jews.  I  believe,  however,  that  the  literary 
motive  was  the  principal  one.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  necessary 
conclusion  as  to  the  origin  of  the  material  of  I  and  II  Chron.  not 
derived  from  our  canonical  books  is  this,  that  it  was  all  freely 
composed  by  the  Chronicler  himself,  in  the  pursuit  of  his  apolo- 
getic aim. 

2.    The  Chronicler  s  Characteristics  as  a  Xa)-)-(ifo)- 

So  much  has  been  said  on  this  subject  already,  in  the  course 
of  the  preceding  argument,  that  it  is  possible  to  be  brief  here. 
The  Chronicler  has  some  very  strong  points  as  a  story-teller,  though 
they  have  been  generally  overlooked  because  of  the  traditional 
view  of  him  as  a  mere  compiler.  I  have  already  given  some 
examples  of  the  way  in  which  he  occasionally  "retouches"  the 
older  narrative  by  introducing  into  it  local  color  and  fresh  incident 
(above,  pp.  217,  219).  The  story  of  Oman  the  Jebusite,  as  retold 
by  him  in  I  Chron.  21,  furnishes  a  typical  instance.  His  imagina- 
tion is  not  the  mere  bondservant  of  his  tendency.  He  very  fre- 
quently creates  new  pictures  and  invents  striking  details  with  a 
dogmatic  purpose,  it  is  true,  but  perhaps  quite  as  often  with  a 
purely  literary  aim.  Few,  if  any,  of  all  the  narrators  of  the  Old 
Testament  could  surpass  him  in  vividness  of  imagination.    Every 

■■*'  See,  for  illustration,  Bernheim,  Historische  Methode,  272  ff. ;  James,  Apocrypha  Anec- 
dota  ii,  p.  xcvii. 

'■i'-l  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  a  purely  literary  embellishment  when  the  latest  editor  of 
the  Books  of  Kings  speaks  of  "The  Book  of  the  Acts  of  Solomon,"  "  The  Book  of  the  Chron- 
icles of  the  Kings  of  Israel,"  and  "The  Book  of  the  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Judah,"  as 
of  works  which  at  least  had  been  in  existence:  "The  rest  of  his  acts,  ....  (cecc  they  not 
written,  etc.?"  It  is  not  in  the  least  likely  tliat  this  editor  had  seen  such  chronicles,  nor  does 
he  say  that  he  had.  But  he  wished  to  offset  in  this  harmless  way,  so  far  as  ho  could,  the 
humiliating  effect  of  this  extremely  meager  account  of  the  Hebrew  Kings.  I  Mace.  16:23  f. 
is  a  very  similar  case,  as  I  have  argued  elsewhere  {Encyct.  Biht.,  Ill,  col.  28(52  f.). 


232  Ezra  Studies 

scene  stands  out  clearly  before  his  eyes,  as  his  thought  creates  the 
successive  incidents.  Everything  is  alive,  and  in  movement.  He 
is  fond  of  putting  things  in  the  most  concrete  form,  giving  places, 
names,  and  dates,  even  when  he  is  thus  taking  liberties  with  the 
older  history.  If  his  skill  —  or  care  —  in  telling  the  story  were 
equal  to  his  power  of  invention,  he  would  stand  among  the  first  of 
Hebrew  writers.  But  this  is  unfortunately  not  the  case.  In  con- 
structing his  narrative  he  is  often  careless,  sometimes  "extremely 
so ;  his  language  is  inelegant,  even  for  the  time  in  which  he  lived ; 
and  his  style  is  slovenly  to  the  last  degree. 

The  following  instances,  picked  up  at  random,  may  serve  to 
illustrate  further  his  chief  characteristics.  II  Chron.  22:116; 
the  statement  that  Jehosheba  was  the  wife  of  Jehoiada  the 
priest  is  the  addition  of  a  true  story-teller.  This  is  perhaps  a 
little  more  than  a  literary  touch,  to  be  sure,  since  by  means  of  it 
the  credit  for  the  rescue  of  the  boy  king  is  given  entirely  to  the 
priests  and  Levites.  II  Chron.  21:12-15;  the  introduction  of  the 
letter  from  the  prophet  Elijah  to  Joram  of  Judah  is  the  same 
sort  of  lively  editing  which  w^e  have  in  the  case  of  the  Hiram- 
Solomon  correspondence  (mentioned  above).  Of  a  similar  nature 
are  the  speeches  which  the  Chronicler  is  so  very  fond  of  putting 
into  the  mouth  of  his  characters.^''  Their  purpose  is  simply  to 
lend  a  certain  dramatic  vividness  to  the  narration.  A  good  exam- 
ple is  I  Chron.  12:18.  In  II  Chron.  21:10  f.  the  Chronicler 
removes  in  a  picturesque  way  all  the  sons  of  the  wicked  queen 
Athaliah,  excepting  only  the  one  (the  youngest)  who  afterward 
reigned.  The  inveterate  fondness  for  furnishing  a  date  is  illus- 
trated in  16:12:  "And  in  the  thirty-ninth  year  of  his 
reign  Asa  was  diseased  in  his  feet"  (of.  I  Kings  15:23).  And  it 
is  with  names  as  it  is  with  dates;  where  the  ordinary  narrator 
merely  tells  the  occurrence,  the  Chronicler  gives  the  name  of  the 
man.  Thus  14:8:  "There  came  out  against  them  Zerah  the 
Ethiopian,"  There  is  no  reason  for  thinking  of  possible  "writ- 
ten sources,"  in  the  many  cases  of  this  kind.  No  one  was  better 
able  to  invent  such  names  than  the  Chronicler  himself. 

II  Chron.  24:15-22  is  a  bit  of  narrative  which  illustrates  both 
the  Chronicler's  didactic  habit  and  also  his  manner  as  a  narrator. 
Vs.  20,  in  particular,  is  characteristic:  "And  the  spirit  of  God 
came  upon  Zechariah  the  son  of  Jehoiada    the  priest;   and    he 

33  See  Driver,  Encijcl.  Bibl.,  loc.  cit.,  col.  772,  and  note  2. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         233 

stood  above  the  peo|)lo,  and  said  unto  tliem,  Thus  saith  God, 
Why  transgress  ye  the  commandments  of  Yah\v6?"  The  motives 
which  led  the  Chronicler  to  create  this  episode  are  obvious.  The 
sad  end  of  Joash  (II  Kings  12:17-21),  who  had  done  so  many 
good  things  in  his  lifetime,  needed  some  preparation  in  the  pre- 
ceding history,  and  this  was  accordingly  provided.  Even  after 
the  death  of  Jehoiada  ( the  narrator  would  say),  the  king  and 
the  princes  were  not  left  without  admonition;  the  son  of  that 
famous  priest  began  to  rebuke  them,  V)ut  was  slain  by  the  com- 
mand of  the  king.  This  was  all  laid  close  at  the  narrator's  hand 
by  the  needs  of  the  situation;  but  the  enlivening  touches,  the 
spoken  words,  and  the  picture  of  the  young  priest  "standing 
above''  the  people,  are  marks  of  the  Chronicler's  individuality. 
II  Chron.  16:7-12  is  another  ease  which  affords  an  excellent 
parallel.  Here  the  good  king  who  goes  astray  is  Asa.  The 
prophet  who  warns  him  is  Hanani.^'  Asa,  like  Joash,  is  enraged, 
and  puts  the  seer  in  a  dungeon.  Then  this  king  also,  like  the 
other,  comes  to  a  mournful  end  (as  told  in  I  Kings  15:23).  The 
story  of  Uzziah  is  another  parallel.  Here  we  are  told  in  II  Kings 
15:5  that  the  good  king  became  a  leper,  and  the  Chronicler  tells 
the  reason  why;  II  Chron.  26:16-20.  This  time  it  is  a  priest 
who  withstands  the  king  and  utters  the  rebuke  which  is  quoted. 
Cf.  further  20:14-17,  and  28:9-13. 

The  following  are  minor  touches  illustrating  the  Chronicler's 
imaginative  way  of  narrating.  I  Chron.  11:23:  '"In  the  Egyp- 
tian's hand  was  a  spear  like  a  iccdver's  heam^''  (cf.  II  Sam.  23:21). 
We  might  also  expect  the  Chronicler  to  give  the  name  of  this 
Egyptian.  12:8:  David's  Gadite  warriors  were  men  '^wJiose faces 
ivere  like  the  faces  of  lions,  and  they  were  as  swift  as  the  roes 
upon  the  mountains."  And  among  these  same  warriors  were  those 
(vs.  15)  '-who  went  over  Jordan  in  ihe  first  )iiontli,  when  it  had 
overjiowed  cdl  its  hanks'  And  in  vs.  31),  those  who  came  to 
Hebron  to  make  David  king  "were  there  with  David  three  daijs, 
eating  and  drinkiiuj.''''  28:2:  "Then  David  the  king  stood  np 
upon  his  feet,  and  said,  Hear  me,  my  brethren,"  etc.  II  Chron. 
13:-1:  "And  Abijah  stood  upon  Monnt  Zemaraim,  ....  and 
said,  Hear  me,  Jeroboam  and  all  Israel."  16:14:  When  Asa  was 
buried,  "they  laid  him  in  a  bed  which  ivas  prepared  with  per- 

•i*  Knowu  ill  I  Kinf?8  16 : 1,  7  only  by  name,  as  the  father  of  the  prophet  Jehu.  The  name 
Hanani(ah)  is  one  of  the  Chronicler's  favorites,  being  introduced  by  him  wherever  there  is 
opportunity.    See  for  example  II  Chron.  26 :  11. 


234  Ezra  Studies 

fumes  and  spices  of  many  kinds'''  (Asa  was  one  of  the  Chronicler's 
favorite  characters).  20:5:  "And  Jehoshaphat  stood  in  the  con- 
gregation of  Judah  and  Jerusalem,  in  the  house  of  Yahw6,  before 
the  neiv  courty  Vs.  16.  speaking  of  a  coming  encounter  with  the 
forces  of  Edom,  Amnion,  and  Moab:  "Ye  shall  find  them  (ti  fhe 
end  of  the  vaUey,  before  the  wilderness  of  Jeruel."  The  Chron- 
icler's imagination  locates  the  scene  exactly,  as  usual.  Vss.  18  f. : 
Jehoshaphat  and  all  the  people  bowed  down  with  their  faces  to  the 
ground,  "and  the  Levites  ....  stood  up  to  sing  praises,"  etc. 
2(3:16  ff.,  the  story  of  Uzziah's  trespass:  As  the  king  stood  there 
in  his  anger,  "the  leprosy  broke  forth  in  ii  is  forehead  in  the  sight 

of  the  priests And  they   thrust    him  out  quickly   from 

thence;  yea,  tie  Jtijiiself  ]i((stened  to  go  out.''''  28:7:  "And 
Zikri,  a  miglity  man  of  Ephraim,  slew  Maaseiah  tlie  King''s  son,'''' 
and  others  whose  names  are  likewise  invented  with  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  giving  life  to  the  narrative.  29:3  f.:  King  Hezekiah, 
"■  in  tlie  first  year  of  Ji is  reign,  in  the  first  month,  opened  the  doors 
of  the  house  of  Yahw6,  and  repaired  them.  And  he  brought  in 
the  priests  and  the  Levites,  and  gathered  them  together  into  the 
broad  place  on  the  east.'"  35:20,  at  the  time  when  Josiah  went 
out  to  meet  Necho,  the  latter  was  marching  to  battle  "«/  Carclie- 
misli  on  the  Euphrates." 

All  the  embellishment  of  this  kind,  which  is  purely  literary,  is 
valuable  for  the  light  which  it  throws  on  the  Chronicler's  qualities 
as  a  composer  of  narrative.  It  has  received  little  attention  hith- 
erto, for  the  obvious  reason  that  it  has  been  customary  to  relieve 
the  Chronicler  of  the  responsibility  for  this  material,  supposing 
him  to  have  derived  it  from  older  writers,  especially  "the  mid- 
rashic  source"  and  "the  lost  book  of  Kings."  But  every  particle 
of  it  bears  the  plain  stamp  of  one  man's  hand. 

Those  independent  contributions  to  the  history  which  have 
been  made  by  the  Chronicler  in  the  interest  of  the  Levitical 
organization,  and  of  the  religious  beliefs  and  practices  of  his  day, 
have  been  treated  often  and  well;  though  they  have  not  been 
adequately  studied  from  the  literary  side,  and  even  those  who  have 
discussed  them  most  fully  have  been  content  to  leave  open  the 
bewildering  possibility  that  they  (or  some  of  them)  were  not 
written  by  the  Chronicler,  but  by  another  man  who  lived  at  about 
the  same  time,  had  the  same  views,  and  wrote  in  the  same  peculiar 
manner.      Examples  of  narrative  which  originated  in  the  Chroiii- 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         235 

cler's  well-known  prejudices  may  be  passed  over  here,  important 
as  they  are.  But.  as  I  have  already  shown,  he  was  not  a  mere 
dealer  in  midrdshim,  but  the  champion  of  a  great  cause.  His 
interest  in  the  Levitical  organization  was  only  one  feature  (though 
a  very  important  feature)  of  his  interest  in  all  the  peculiarly 
Jewish  religious  institutions.  And  he  repeatedly  invents  historical 
episodes  in  which  his  controversial  purpose  can  be  seen. 

His  defense  of  the  sole  authority  of  the  church  in  Jerusalem, 
and  his  half-concealed  polemic'^'  against  the  Samaritans  in  partic- 
ular, make  their  appearance  with  emphasis  as  soon  as  he  comes 
in  his  history  to  the  dividing  of  the  kingdom.  The  reason  why 
the  Northern  Kingdom  of  Israel  is  generally  left  out  of  account  by 
him  is  mainly  because  it  lay  outside  the  sphere  of  his  chief  ])ur- 
pose,'*'^  but  is  found  also  in  the  fact  that  in  his  own  day  rival 
Hebrew  organizations,  and  especially  the  church  on  Mount  Gerizim, 
were  using  the  existence  of  this  Northern  Kingdom  as  a  weapon 
against  the  pretensions  of  the  Jews.  At  the  very  beginning  of 
his  account  of  the  schism,  in  the  story  of  Abijah  and  his  war  with 
Jeroboam,  the  Chronicler  lays  down  his  main  thesis  in  a  very 
conspicuous  manner.  The  king  of  Judah  delivers  an  oration, 
II  Chron.  13:4-12,  in  which,  after  showing  that  the  men  of  the 
northern  kingdom  were  apostates  and  idolaters  (vss.  5-8),  he  utters 
these  words:  ""Have  ye  not  driven  out  the  priests  of  Yahw6,  the 
sons  of  Aaron,  and  the  Levites,  and  have  made  for  yourselves 
priests  ffODi  the  jx'oplc  of  tJie  Jand?^'  Wliorro'  coiiicfli  to  couse- 
cr(dr  liimsclf  with  o  i/oinir/  hullocJc  (ind  screii  i'odis.  lie  dkih  hccomc 
(A  priest  to  your  false  gods.  '"But  as  for  }is.  Yahw^  is  oiiv  God, 
and  ive  have  not  forsaJxen  him.  We  have  priests  ministering  to 
Yahw6,  tJie  sons  of  Aaron,  and  the  Levites  in  their  irork.  "And 
they  [i.  e.,  the  priests]  *^  burn  unto  Yahw6  every  morning  and  every 
evening  burnt  offerings  and  sweet  incense;  the  showbread  also 
is  set  in  order  on  the  pure  table,  and  the  golden  candlestick  with 

3i)He  was  of  course  much  too  shrewd  a  man  to  introduce  into  his  history  any  open 
polemic  against  the  Samaritans.  Anything  resembling  this  must  immediately  have  spoiled 
the  effect  of  his  whole  work.  If  it  could  easily  be  recognized  as  a  party  document,  he  might 
as  well  have  spared  himself  the  trouble  of  writing  it.  His  whole  hope  of  success  lay  in  giving 
it  the  appearance  of  history,  built  up  out  of  material  which  antedated  the  Samaritan 
schism. 

36  And  yet  we  can  imagine  that  the  Chronicler,  with  his  zeal  for  the  glory  of  the  Hebrew 
people  as  over  against  the  other  peoples  of  the  earth,  might  have  been  glad  to  make  mention 
of  the  external  prosperity  of  such  reigns  as  those  of  Ahab  and  .Jeroboam  II. 

3T  Read  niilSn  '^'l27')2  .  following  the  Greek,  «  toO  AaoC  r^j?  yij?. 

3''The  Cliroiiiclnr.  in  his  usual  slovenly  style,  attaches  the  participle  S^^IipT^  *"  'ts 
predecessor  □"'P'1TI;T3  !>^  though  nothing  had  intervened. 


230  Ezra  Studies 

its  lamps,  to  burn  every  evening.  For  ice  keep  tJic  charge  of 
Yahice  our  God,  but  jje  have  forsaken  him.'"  The  purpose  of  all 
this  is  as  plain  as  day.  It  is  precisely  the  main  purpose  of  the 
whole  book  of  Ezra,  and  of  chaps.  7-13  of  the  book  of  Nehemiah ; 
namely,  to  show  that  the  Samaritans,  who  claimed  to  be  the  heirs 
of  the  Northern  Kingdom,  and  a  legitimate  branch  of  the  people 
of  Yahw6,  had  no  right  to  recognition.  The  Chronicler  here,  as 
elsewhere,  insists  on  the  pure  blood,  not  contaminated  by  inter- 
marriage; and  he  enumerates  the  details  of  the  orthodox  forms  of 
the  worship,  as  it  existed  in  his  day  in  Jerusalem,  but  nowhere 
else,  not  even  on  Mount  Gerizim.  The  Samaritan  priests  are  men 
of  the  ^1:i^^5^i  ^'Cy ,  however  near  they  may  keep  to. the  regula- 
tions of  the  Pentateuch. ■'''  So  also  with  the  rest  of  the  officials 
and  the  apparatus  of  the  temple.  In  the  church  which  had  its 
center  at  Shechem,  the  Levites  of  the  Chronicler's  Jerusalem, 
with  their  important  tasks  and  elaborate  organization,  did  not 
exist. ^"  Jerusalem  preserved  the  true  tradition  of  the  cult;  in 
departing  from  it  these  northern  rivals  were  apostates.  In  the 
development  of  his  theme  the  Chronicler  composes  here  an  elabo- 
rate narrative  of  18  verses,  containing  the  account  of  an  ambush, 
the  slaying  of  500,000  men  of  the  Northern  Kingdom  (thus  the 
pure  Hebrew  stock  there  suffered  a  great  diminution  at  the  very 
beginning!),  and  the  names  of  the  cities  which  Judah  captured  on 
this  occasion. 

Another  instance  of  this  nature  is  II  Chron.  25:6-10,  13. 
Amaziah,  in  undertaking  an  important  expedition  against  the 
Edomites,  hires  a  large  body  of  v>^arriors  from  Israel.  A  prophet 
warns  him  that  "Yahw6  is  not  with"  the  people  of  the  Northern 
Kingdom;  so  he  sends  the  army  back,  and  it  returns  home  "in 
fierce  anger."  Bent  on  revenge,  it  lays  waste  the  cities  of  northern 
Judea.  Similar  in  its  motive,  again,  is  the  story  told  in  28:6-15. 
This  is  very  lively,  and  full  of  incident.  The  principal  scene  is 
vividly  sketched,  two  speeches  are  reported  verbatim,  and  the 
names  of  nine  characters,  otherwise  unknown,  are  given.     This 

■i'' With  the  "young  bullock  and  seven  rams  "  of  vs.  9  compare  Exod.  29: 1,  35,  etc.  Per- 
haps the  Chronicler  is  not  trying  to  be  exact  in  these  verses,  but  it  may  well  be  that  we  are 
to  recognize  in  them  both  what  was  and  what  ivas  not  included  in  the  official  ritual  of  the 
Samaritan  church  in  the  Chronicler's  day. 

I'^The  term  "Levites"  here  of  course  includes  "porters"  and  "singers,"  just  as  it  does 
everywhere  else  in  Chron. -Ezr.-Neh.  where  there  is  no  special  reason  for  distinguishing  the 
separate  classes.  In  the  following  narrative,  vss.  12,  14,  tlie  priests  appear  with  trumpets  as 
in  I  Chron.  15:'i;4,  Ezr.  3:10,  Neh.  12:35,  etc.  This  occasion  (actual  battle  !)  would  be  no  place 
for  the  "singers."    Kittel,  Comin.,  p.  i:iO,  writes  witliout  due  consideration. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator        237 

affords  a  very  good  example,  in  brief  compass,  of  the  Chroiiicler''s 
skill  as  a  novelist. 

A  considerable  part  of  the  Chronicler's  independent  narrative 
is  not  controversial  at  all,  but  simply  composed  with  a  didactic  aim. 
In  the  cases  of  this  kind,  as  in  the  others,  it  is  his  habit  to  carry 
back  into  the  history  of  earlier  times  the  things  which  he  either 
saw,  or  would  like  to  see,  in  his  own  day.  A  very  good 
example  is  furnished  by  the  two  passages,  II  Chron.  17:7-10  and 
19:4-11.  King  Jehoshaphat  wished  all  his  people  to  know  the 
Pentateuch  and  be  governed  by  it.  He  therefore  in  the  third 
year  of  his  reign  appointed  men  to  visit  all  the  cities  of  Judah, 
teaching  the  law  of  Moses  and  acting  as  judges  in.  accordance 
with  it  (17:7  ff.).  This  worked  so  well  that  "the  fear  of  Yahw6 
fell  upon  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  lands  that  were  round  about 
Judah,  so  that  they  made  no  war  against  Jehoshaphat"  (vs.  10). 
Some  years  later,  accordingly,  after  the  king  had  become  well 
established  in  his  kingdom,  he  renewed  this  appointment  of  judges 
and  teachers,  making  the  organization  more  formal  and  thorough, 
as  well  as  more  permanent  (l*J:lff.).  The  result  was  just  the 
same  as  in  the  former  case.  Jehoshaphat  and  his  people  immedi- 
ately triumphed  over  a  great  hostile  army,  without  the  necessity 
of  striking  a  single  blow  (20:1-28).  "And  the  fear  of  God  was 
on  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  lands,  when  they  heard  that  Yahw^ 
fought  against  the  enemies  of  Israel"  (vs.  29).  These  judges 
and  teachers  are  said  by  the  Chronicler,  in  both  cases,  to  consist 
of  prominent  men  of  Judah,  priests,  and  Levites."  Through 
their  co-operation  was  made  possible  a  uniform  knowledge  of 
the  divine  law,  and  a  uniform  administration  of  it,  all  through 
the  land.  Beside  the  local  seats  of  justice  there  was  the  central 
seat,  in  Jerusalem  (19:8).  All  this,  as  has  often  been  remarked, 
corresponds  closely  to  conditions  which  actually  existed  in  the 
land  at  the  close  of  the  last  century  b.  c.  (see  Josephus,  Antt.,  iv, 
214-18,  andSchurer,  Gcschichte\  II,  176-79),  and  probably  also 
in  the  time  of  the  Chronicler.  He  doubtless  had  in  mind  a  still 
more  thorough  and  efficient  system,  and  hoped  to  see  it  extended. 
How  fundamentally  important  it  seemed  to  him  may  be  seen  from 
II  Chron.  15:3,  Ezr.  7:10,  25  f.,  10:14.  Ezra  the  priest  was  a 
judge  and  a  teacher  himself,  administering  the  law  of  Moses,  and 
he  appointed  others  for  the  same  important  work.     On  the  Levites 

*I  In  17 :  7  f.,  "  princes,  Levites,  and  priests,"  exactly  as  in  Nob.  10 : 1,  etc. 


238  Ezra  Studies 

as  judges  and  teachers,  see  also  I  Chron.  23:4,  26:29,  Neh.  8:7,  9; 
and  with  II  Chron.  19:11  cf.  especially  Neh.  11:22-24.*' 

3.    The  ''Ezra  Memoirs'' 

From  what  has  been  said,  above,  as  to  the  character  of  the 
Chronicler's  work,  that  it  is  an  elaborate  historical  apology  for 
the  Jewish  institutions  of  his  time,  it  is  obvious  that  the  center  of 
gravity  in  it  must  lie  in  his  account  of  the  restoration. 
The  one  possible  key  to  the  situation  which  confronted  him  was  a 
formal  and  thoroughgoing  "restoration"  through  the  medium  of 
the  Babylonian  captivity  (see  above,  pp.  208,  212).  There  was 
no  other  way  in  which  the  primacy  of  the  Jewish  church,  and  the 
exclusion  of  its  rivals,  could  be  assured — now  that  those  ill-fated 
verses,  II  Kings  24:14  ff.,  25:8-12,  22,  25  f.,  had  been  written  and 
widely  circulated.  It  was  absolutely  necessary  to  show  that  the 
genuine  old  Hebrew  church,  both  its  men  and  its  institutions, 
came  straight  from  Babylonia  to  Judea,  and  that  the  ancient 
stream  of  tradition  had  been  kept  uncontaminated. 

We  should  accordingly  expect  that  the  Chronicler,  in  passing 
on  from  the  story  of  the  kingdom  to  that  of  the  Persian  period, 
would  begin  to  show  the  measure  of  his  best  work.  That  is,  in 
fact,  what  we  do  see.  The  amount  of  the  independent  material 
which  he  contributes  is  proportionately  but  little  greater  here,  it 
is  true,  than  in  the  earlier  sections.  In  I  and  II  Chron.,  as  we 
have  seen,  nearly  one-half  of  the  whole  was  composed  by  him; 
and  here  in  Ezr.-Neh.  his  contribution  amounts  to  about  two- 
thirds,  consisting  largely  of  lists  of  names.  But  it  is  in  some 
respects  work  done  more  thoroughly  (not  more  carefully  ;  the 
Chronicler  never  did  anything  with  great  care)  than  any  of  that 
which  preceded  it.  So  far  as  the  author's  manner  and  his  literary 
habits  and  devices  are  concerned,  the  Chronicler's  narrative  in 
Ezr.-Neh.  presents  nothing  at  all  that  is  new,  excepting  the  (very 
natural)  use  of  the  first  person  in  the  story  of  Ezra,  in  imitation 

*'^  Benzinger's  amazing  comments  on  the  two  passages,  II  Chron.  17:7  ft',  and  19:4  ^., 
are  characteristic  of  the  manner  in  which  he  has  hastened  through  the  books  of  Chronicles 

(Comrn.y  p.  104):   "  Das  erbauliche  Element  in  d<T  ErzahluDg  fehlt  gftnzlich Sodann 

ist  nicht  einzusehen,  wozu  die  Erfindung  der  Namen  dcr  oberston  Beamten  17:7  gedient 
hatte.  Bei  einem  Produkt  freior  Phantasie  hatte  sich  Chr.  resp.  seine  Quelle  an  den  Pries- 
tern  und   Leviten   genttgoti  lassen Chr.  und  seine  Zoit  batten  die  Verkundigung 

des  Gesetzes  den  Leviten  und  Priestern  allein  uberlassen,  dereu  Amt  das  war;  vgl.  die 
Gosetzesverlesung  Neh.  8,  bes.  v.  7.  8"  (and  yet  it  is  obvious  that  in  Neh.  8:4  laymen  are 
intended,  and  the  most  of  the  names  are  actually  found,  as  names  of  "chief  men  of  the 
people,"  in  Neh.  10:15-28  and  Ezr.  10:25-43).  And  both  Benzingor  and  Kittel  find  it  notice- 
able that  the  laymen  are  mentioned  first,  in  17  :  7  f. !    In  19 :  8  point  of  course  ^m2J)^1 . 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         239 

of  the  memoir  of  Nehemiah.  But  the  opportunity  which  he  had 
here  to  show  his  inventive  ability  and  his  constructive  skill  was 
much  greater  than  any  which  he  had  had  previously.  He  had 
before  him,  as  usable  material,  two  documents.  The  first  was  an 
Aramaic  popular  tale  of  the  building  of  the  temple,  recently  com- 
posed by  one  of  his  own  way  of  thinking.  It  was  dated,  unmis- 
takably, in  the  reigns  of  Artaxerxes  I  and  Darius  II.  The  second 
was  the  memoir  of  Nehemiah,  telling  of  the  building  of  the  city 
wall.  This  Avas  dated  in  the  reign  of  a  certain  "Artaxerxes," 
who,  if  the  Aramaic  story  was  right,  must  have  been  Artaxerxes  II. 
So  the  Chronicler  evidently  reasoned,  on  the  basis  of  Ezr.  4: 19-24. 
Aside  from  these  two  documents,  and  the  few  data  in  the  prophets 
Haggai,  Zechariah,  and  Malachi,  the  whole  Persian  period  was  a 
blank,  which  he  was  free  to  fill  as  he  saw  fit. 

Prom  his  account  of  the  last  days  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah 
and  the  destruction  of  the  temple  (nearly  all  of  II  Chron.  35,  and 
36:13-21,  being  his  own  free  composition)  he  proceeds  directly 
to  narrate  the  restoration  at  the  beginning  of  the  Persian  rule. 
This  is  told  in  his  well-known  manner,  with  primary  attention  to 
all  the  details  connected  with  the  Jewish  church,  and  the  smallest 
possible  amount  of  other  narrative.  There  is  no  evidence,  nor 
likelihood,  that  he  had  any  written  source,  other  than  those 
already  named.  He  tells  of  the  proclamation  of  Cyrus  (Ezra, 
chap.  1),  and  how  the  king  restored  the  sacred  vessels;  he  also 
gives  (in  I  Esdras  4:47-56)  the  contents  of  the  letters  of  Cyrus  to 
his  Syrian  ofiicials,  with  prescription  for  all  the  principal  institu- 
tions and  ordinances  of  the  Jewish  community  as  the  Chronicler 
imagined  it.  He  gives  the  date  (of  course!)  of  the  great  return, 
and  the  names  and  lineage  of  the  leaders  (I  Esdras  5:4-6) ;  and 
then  the  all-important  list,  outside  of  which  there  was  no  ecclesi- 
astical salvation.  In  Ezra  3  and  4:1-5  he  narrates  how  the 
returning  exiles  settled  in  the  land,  restored  the  worship  as  far 
as  possible,  and  began  building  the  temple.  In  3:12f.  we  have 
one  of  those  descriptive  touches  of  which  he  is  master.  It  is 
worthy  of  especial  notice  how  in  4:1-5  he  does  the  same  thing 
which  he  had  done  in  II  Chron.  13:4-11  (see  above).  Just  as 
the  speech  of  Abijah,  made  after  the  division  of  the  kingdom, 
showed  that  the  true  tradition  was  in  Jerusalem  and  not  in  north- 
ern Israel,  so  here,  iaimediately  after  the  return,  the  fact  is  stated 
with  emphasis  that  the  Samaritans  (purposely  called  by  the  non- 


2J:0  Ezra  Studies 

committal  term,  "adversaries  of  Judah  and  Benjamin")  have  no 
part  in  the  true  worship  of  the  God  of  Israel,  although  they 
claim  to  have  it. 

But  the  story  of  Ezra  is  the  episode  of  especial  interest  in  this 
"post-exilic"  history,  and  the  one  which  best  illustrates  the  quali- 
ties which  have  been  described.  It  is  "the  Chronicler's  master- 
piece" [Conip.,  p.  57).  I  showed  in  my  former  brief  treatise 
that  he  is  the  sole  author  of  this,  and  the  proof  there  given,  while 
it  might  have  been  extended  much  farther,  was  more  than  suffi- 
cient." It  is  singular  that  the  fact  should  have  remained  so  long 
unrecognized.  A  generation  or  more  ago,  when  it  was  still 
believed  that  there  was  a  "post-exilic  style"  of  Hebrew  prose,  it 
was  easy  to  believe  that  these  supposed  three  men,  the  Chronicler, 
Ezra,  and  Nehemiah,  could  all  write  in  exactly  the  same  way.  But 
the  time  for  such  an  easy-going  theory  is  long  past,  now  that  we 
know  that  the  authors  of  the  books  Joel,  Haggai,  Zechariah, 
Malachi,  Jonah,  Kuth,  Nehemiah  (in  chaps.  1-6),  Koheleth, 
Esther,  Ezekiel,  Daniel,  and  the  writer  of  the  "Priestly  Narra- 
tive" in  the  Pentateuch— not  to  mention  still  others — wrote  each 
in  his  own  individual  manner,  and  no  one  of  them  in  a  style 
which  at  all  resembles  that  of  the  Chronicler. 

First,  as  to  the  fact  that  the  whole  of  the  "Ezra  memoir" 
(especially  Ezr.  7:27— 10:44  and  Neh.  7:70—10:40)  is  written 
in  the  Clironicler's  own  words,  whether  created  by  him 
entire  or  merely  rewritten.  It  is  only  necessary  to  ask  three 
questions:  (1)  Is  there  such  a  thing  as  a  characteristic  style; 
i.  e.,  a  recognizable  individuality  in  the  use  of  words  and  phrases 
and  in  the  manner  of  expressing  ideas?  (2)  Did  the  Chronicler 
have  a  style  which  can  be  recognized?  (3)  In  what  passages  or 
chapters  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  is  it  to  be  found  with  certainty? 
The  first  of  these  questions  must  of  course  be  answered  affirma- 
tively. The  answer  to  the  second  is,  or  ought  to  be,  known  to 
every  student  of  Hebrew.  There  is  no  writer,  in  all  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, whose  peculiarities  of  language  and  style  are  so  strongly 
marked,  or  who  can  so  easily  and  certainly  be  recognized,  as  the 
Chronicler."     In  answer  to  the  third  question  I  make  the  foUow- 

*3M<ist  of  the  reviewers  of  my  Composition  passed  very  hastily  over  the  evidence  of 
language  and  style,  as  though  these  were  matters  of  minor  importance!  In  nearly  every 
case,  however,  they  acknowledged  the  justice  of  the  claim  which  I  had  made  (p.  16),  that 
my  lists  of  words  and  usages  were  trustworthy  so  far  as  they  went.  One  reviewer,  LOhr,  in 
the  Theol.  Rundschau,  1898,  pp.  3.31  f.,  asserted  the  contrary,  with  a  succession  of  statements 
which  are  not  only  misleading  but  in  part  positively  unfair. 

"See  the  statement  of  Professor  Driver,  already  quoted  (above,  p.  230). 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator        241 

ing  assertion,  which  is  the  assured  result  of  a  good  deal  of  hard 
study:  There  is  no  poi'tion  of  the  whole  ivork  Chro)L-Ezr.-Xeh. 
inivMch  the  Chron icier'' s  literary  peculiarities  are  more  strongly 
marked,  more  abundant,  more  evenly  and  continuously  distrib- 
uted,  and  more  easily  recognizable,  than  in  the  Hebrew  narra- 
tive of  Ezr.  7-10  and  Neh.  8-10.  Sufficient  proof  of  this  can  be 
seen  by  anyone  even  in  the  long  "list  of  peculiar  usages"  pub- 
lished in  Driver's  Introduction,  or  in  that  given  in  Geissler's 
Litterar.  Beziehungen  der  Esramemoiren,  1899,  pp.  5-11,^^  with- 
out the  necessity  of  going  farther.  How  does  it  happen  that  the 
Chronicler,  and  "Ezra"  (everywhere),  and  Nehemiah  (every- 
where excepting  in  chaps.  1-6!)  all  write  just  the  same  very 
peculiar  Hebrew?  So  far  as  this  phenomenon  has  been  noticed- 
at  all,  it  has  been  customary  to  explain  it  by  saying  that  the 
Chronicler  as  editor  gave  the  writings  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  a 
stylistic  revision:  "well  ja  der  Verf .  (Chroniker)  die  Denkschrift 
Esra's  umgeschrieben  und  in  sein  Buch  aufgenommen  hat,  wobei 
sich  leicht  seine  Sprachfarbung  dem  Texte  mittheilte"  (von 
Orelli,  in  the  Theol  Litcraturblatt,  1898,  p.  290).  But  those 
who  attempt  this  explanation  show  that  they  neither  realize  the 
extent  of  this  "revision"  nor  have  an  acquaintance  with  the 
Chronicler's  editorial  methods.  He  also  edited  Neh.,  chaps.  1,  2, 
4-6,  but  left  all  this  apparently  untouched,  saving  a  few  verses 
which  he  added  or  inserted,  and  which  contain  the  only  sure 
marks  of  his  hand.  More  important  still,  we  know  just  how  he 
has  edited  the  multitude  of  long  extracts  from  the  books  of  Sam- 
uel and  Kings.  The  material  of  which  he  has  made  use  there  has 
not  been  given  his  "Sprachfarbung."  His  peculiar  words  and 
usages,  such  as  those  given  in  the  long  list  just  mentioned,  are 
almost  never  found  in  the  chapters  and  paragraphs  which  he  has 
transferred;  and  even  in  the  comparatively  few  cases  where  he 
has  revised  or  expanded  the  older  narrative  they  are  not  at  all 
common.     The  only  passages  in  which  his  characteristics 

*ii Geissler's  investigation  is  industrious  and  useful,  but  his  conclusions  in  the 
matters  now  under  discussion  are  singularly  at  variance  with  the  evidence  which  he  pre- 
sents. After  showing  the  enormous  extent  to  which  the  literary  stock-in-trade  of  "  Ezra  " 
coincides  with  that  of  the  Clironicler,  he  goes  on  to  discuss  the  words  and  phrases  occurring 
both  in  "Ezra"  and  in  the  Hexateuch  (pp.  12-21),  presenting  an  array  of  evidence  which 
proves  nothing  more  than  this,  that  the  Chronicler  wrote  Hebrew  and  had  read  his  Bible. 
He  then  presents  (pp.  22  f.)  the  linguistic  material  peculiar  to  the  "Ezra  memoirs." 
What  is  gained  from  this  very  meager  list,  and  from  the  remarks  which  follow  it,  is  merely 
the  certainty  that  a  few  words  and  phrases  found  in  Ezra  are  not  found  in  Chron.,  and  vice 
versa;  i.e.,  that  the  Chronicler  really  had  at  his  command  as  large  a  vocabulary  as  he 
might  be  expected  to  have. 


242  Ezra  Studies 

appear  frequently,  in  successive  verses  and  many  times 
on  a  single  page  —  as  they  appear  all  the  time  in  the 
Ezra  story — are  the  paragraphs  and  chapters  which  he 
has  composed  independently.  This  is  a  statement  concern- 
ing which  there  can  be  no  dispute.  It  can  easily  be  verified  by 
anyone  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  study  the  books  of  Chron- 
icles in  Kittel's  edition,  with  the  aid  of  the  lists  already  mentioned. 
As  I  said  in  my  Comp.,  pp.  51  f.:  "The  Chronicler  incorporates 
his  documentary  sources  entire,  so  far  as  practicable,  not  rewrit- 
ing them  or  working  them  over,  but  enriching  them  occasionally 
with  an  added  clause  or  inserted  paragraph."  I  have  now  given 
sufficient  illustration  of  this  (see  above),  and  it  is  a  fact  well 
known  to  those  who  have  studied  the  books  of  Chronicles.**^  So 
when,  for  example,  Kraetzschmar,  in  the  Theol.  Literaturzeitimg, 
1897,  col.  350,  would  make  the  concession,  "dass  der  Chronist  in 
die  Esra-Memoire  starker  eingegriffen  hat,  als  man  bisher  im 
Allgemeinen  annahm"  (cf.  also  Geissler,  op.  cit.,  pp.  11  f.),  he  is 
proposing  an  explanation  of  the  facts  which  is  entirely  inad- 
missible. 

Then,  as  to  the  significance  of  the  fact  that  the  Ezra  story 
lies  before  us  in  the  Chronicler's  own  language.  There  is  only 
one  possible  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  abundant  material 
which  we  have  to  guide  us,  namely  this,  that  the  story  is  entirely  his 
own  composition.  Kraetzschmar,  loc.  cit.,  objects:  "Es  ware  ein 
Leichtes,  nach  des  Verfassers  Methode  audi  diese  Kapitel  [I  Chron. 
21  and  II  Chron.  28  f.]  und  noch  viele  andere  auf  alteren  Quel- 
len  beruhende  der  Chronik  als  vom  Chronisten  frei  erfunden  und 
ganzlich  ungeschichtlich  hinzustellen."  Of  course!  That  is  the 
only  treatment  possible  to  one  who  knows  the  Chronicler  and  has 
any  idea  what  a  scientific  method  is.  In  the  two  chapters,  II 
Chron.  28  f.,  and  all  others  like  them,  whatever  the  Chronicler 
himself  has  written,  in  the  way  of  either  addition  or  alteration,  is 
"frei  erfunden  und  ungeschichtlich."  Since  Kraetzschmar  has 
pointed  out  these  three  chapters  by  way  of  illustration,  it  may  be 
well  to  notice,  in  passing,  what  they  really  illustrate.  In  II 
Chron.  28  f.  there  are  no  marks  whatever  of  the  Chronicler's 
hand  in  any  of  the  verses  which  contain  material  from  II  Kings. 
But  in  the  remainder  of  the  two  chapters,  where  he  cuts  loose 

*6Thus  Benzinger,  Conim.,  p.  113,  decides  that  the  story  of  Joash's  repairing  of  the  tem- 
ple, II  Chron.  24:4-14,  cannot  come  from  the  ('hionicler,  simply  because  the  story  told  in 
Kings  has  boon  thoroughly  rewritten  (and  altogether  changed  in  its  contents,  bo  it  noted  !). 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         2-43 

from  his  source  and  composes  his  own  narrative,  the  characteris- 
tic words  and  phrases  appear.  In  I  Chron.  21,  where  he  has 
merely  made  extensive  superficial  alteration,  while  retaining  a 
good  deal  of  the  material  of  his  source,  no  traces  of  his  lan- 
guage and  style  appear  (and  this,  as  I  remarked  above,  is  the 
rule  in  such  cases).  This  chapter,  therefore,  stands  on  an  alto- 
gether different  footing  from  those  in  the  Ezra  story.  With  the 
narrative  which  does  not  appear  to  have  been  written  by 
the  Chronicler  we  have  at  present  nothing  to  do. 

Further,  the  narrative  which  gives  evidence  of  coming  from 
the  Chronicler's  hand  cannot  possibly  be  treated  as  substantially 
representing  an  older  source.  It  is  not  simply  that  we  have  no 
guarantee  that  in  introducing  his  own  form  of  words  he  has  not 
altered  the  material  contents  of  his  source;  we  know  with 
certainty  that  in  all  such  cases  he  has  altered  them  fundamen- 
tally. The  evidence  of  I  and  II  Chron.  is  conclusive  on  this 
point,  as  I  have  shown.  Wherever  he  employs  his  own  language, 
the  substance  also  is  his;  and  if  the  traces  of  his  presence  are 
numerous  throughout  any  considerable  piece  of  narrative,  the 
overwhelming  probability  is  that  he  had  no  written  source  at  all 
for  it. 

Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  nothing  whatever  to  make  it 
seem  likely  that  the  Chronicler  had  any  source,  written  or  oral, 
for  his  story  of  Ezra.  If  we  have  any  definite  knowledge  at  all 
of  this  "Ezra,"  we  know  that  he  was  a  man  precisely  like  the 
Chronicler  himself:  interested  very  noticeably  in  the  Levites, 
and  especially  the  class  of  singers;  deeply  concerned  at  all  times 
with  the  details  of  the  cult  and  with  the  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tion in  Jerusalem ;  armed  with  lists  of  names  giving  the  geneal- 
ogy and  official  standing  of  those  who  constituted  the  true 
church  ;  with  his  heart  set  on  teaching  and  enforcing  the  neg- 
lected law  of  Moses  throughout  the  land  (see  above,  pp.  237  f.)  ; 
and — most  important  of  all — zealous  for  the  exclusion  of  the 
"people  of  the  land,"  the  condemnation  of  mixed  marriages,  and 
the  preservation  of  the  pure  blood  of  Israel!  There  is  not  a  gar- 
ment in  all  Ezra's  wardrobe  that  does  not  tit  the  Chronicler 
exactly.  To  suppose  that  the  latter  could  have  rewritten  the 
w^ords,  and  twisted  the  ideas,  of  this  kindred  spirit,  whose  testi- 
mony was  of  such  immense  importance  to  all  his  own  special 
interests,  is  out  of  the  question;  his  intelligence  was  not  of  such 


244  Ezra  Studies 

a  low  order  as  this;  and  we  know,  besides,  that  his  habit  was 
directly  opposed  to  any  such  proceeding,  even  when  the  material 
was  not  exactly  suited  to  his  purpose. 

One  literary  feature  of  the  "Ezra  document"  is  referred  to  over 
and  over  again  as  conclusive  proof  of  its  genuineness,  namely  the 
occasional  appearance  of  the  first  peison.  "J  was  strengthened" 
(Ezr.  7:38)  ;  "the  princes  drew  near  to  we"  (9:1) ;  "and  we  cast 
lots"  (Neh.  10:34).  Such  verses  as  these,  it  is  said,  must  surely 
come  directly  from  Ezra  himself;  for  anyone  else  would  have 
narrated  in  the  third  person — as  is  done  in  Ezr.  10  and  Neh.  8, 
for  example.  Thus  Orelli,  in  the  Theol.  Liter aturhlait,  1898, 
p.  292,  asks  how  it  is  possible  to  deny  the  authentic  memoir — 
"ihr  Vorhandensein  bekundet  deutlich  genug  noch  das  ungesuchte 
Auftreten  der  ersten  Person  des  Erzahlers."  But  surely  no  exten- 
sive acquaintance  with  ancient  literature  is  needed  in  order  to 
recognize  this  very  transparent  and  very  common  literary  device. 
Such  touches  as  these,  used  often  brilliantly,  but  hardly  ever 
consistently,  are  the  Chronicler's  regular  stock-in-trade.  If 
we  had  no  direct  proof  that  narratives  written  in  the  first  person 
were  known  to  him,  we  might  hesitate  a  little  to  suppose  that  he 
(with  all  his  power  of  living  in  the  scenes  which  he  depicts) 
had  adopted  this  form  of  composition.  But  he  actually  had  the 
Nehemiah  memoir  in  his  hands!  As  for  the  change  from  the 
first  person  to  the  third,  and  back  again,  which  has  so 
thoroughly  mystified  our  Old  Testament  scholars,  it  is  not  even 
necessary  to  make  it  a  special  reproach  to  the  Chronicler's  care- 
lessness, since  it  occurs,  in  precisely  the  same  way,  in  many  other 
ancient  works  of  fiction.  A  good  example  is  found  in  the  fourth 
chapter  of  Daniel.  I  quote  from  Bevan's  Commentary,  p.  87: 
"One  peculiarity  which  cannot  fail  to  strike  the  reader,  is  that  in 
the  middle  of  the  narrative  (4:25-30  [English  trans.,  vss.  28-33J) 
the  author,  forgetting  for  the  moment  that  he  is  writing  in  the 
name  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  speaks  of  the  king  in  the  third  person, 
but  afterwards  returns  to  the  first  (vss.  31-34)."  Another 
instance,  equally  instructive,  is  furnished  by  the  same  book.  From 
7:2  onward,  to  the  end  of  the  book,  all  of  the  narrative  is  given 
in  the  first  person,  with  the  exception  of  10:1,  where  the  third 
person  is  temporarily  introduced.  Are  we  to  conclude  that  the 
authentic  memoirs  of  Daniel  begin  at  7:2,  and  that  10:1 
has  been  "iiberarbeitet,"  or  inserted  by  the  redactor?      Excellent 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         245 

illustration  is  given  by  the  book  of  Enoch,  in  more  than  one 
place.  12:3,  for  example,  begins  one  of  the  "Ichstiicke"  (observe 
vss.  1,  2).  Shall  we  not  suppose  that  one  of  the  extracts  from 
the  genuine  personal  memoir  of  Enoch  begins  at  this  point  ?  And, 
again,  there  is  the  story  of  Tobit.  Chaps.  1-3  (in  both  of  the 
principal  Greek  recensions)  are  composed  in  the  first  person;  but 
in  chaps.  4-14  the  narrator  lapses  into  the  third  person.  In  the 
seventh  chap,  of  the  Book  of  Jubilees,  where  the  narrative  is  in  the 
third  person,  in  vs.  26  it  suddenly  passes  over,  without  any  warn- 
ing, into  the  first  person,  and  so  continues  to  the  end  of  the  chap- 
ter (vss.  26-39) ,  after  which  the  third  person  is  resumed.^'  A  simi- 
lar thing  happens  in  the  ancient  Protevangel  of  James,  where  a 
part  of  the  narrative,  told  by  Joseph,  suddenly  adopts  the  first 
person — simply  because  the  writer's  imagination  happened  to  work 
in  that  way.  Excellent  illustration  from  the  Gentile  narrative 
literature  is  afforded  (for  instance)  in  the  various  recensions  of 
the  Thousand  and  One  Nights,  in  numerous  places;  also  in  the 
Arabic  story  of  Siil  und  Schumiil,  ed.  Seybold,  p.  79,  lines  14  f. ; 
p.  85,  line  16.  In  all  these  cases,  and  many  similar  ones,  and  in 
the  Chronicler's  change  from  "I"  to  "he"  in  telling  Ezra's  story, 
the  determining  factor  is  the  same:  whether  the  narrator  uses  the 
first  person  or  the  third  depends  simply  on  the  mood  of  his 
imagination;  whether,  as  he  sits  down  to  write  a  fresh  chapter,  he 
happens  to  identify  himself  with  his  hero,  or  not.*^ 

It  is  a  most  significant  fact,  in  this  connection,  that  the  very 
verses  and  passages  which  contain  "Ezra's"  first  person  are  often 
those  which  are  most  noticeably  filled  with  the  telltale  signs  of 
the  Chronicler.  Thus,  the  verses  7:27  —  8:1  which  form  the 
beginning  of  the  first  "memoir  section"  show  a  remarkable  aggre- 
gation of  such  marks,  including  some  of  the  most  characteristic 
of  all  (see  my  ComposHion,  pp.  16  f.,  20  f.).  Geissler,  op.  cit., 
p.  12,  records  his  conclusion  that  the  traces  of  the  Chronicler's 

♦'There  are  many  illustrations  of  such  sudden  change,  back  and  forth,  in  the  Jewish 
apocalyptic  literature.  Thus,  the  "  Life  of  Adam  and  Eve,"  §33  {Kautzsch,  Pstudepi- 
graphen,  524,  bottom) ;  the  cases  noted  in  James,  Apocrypha  Anecdota.  ii,  pp.  Iv,  xc,  xcii, 
xcivr  f.,  r24ff. ;  also  these  same  Cambridge  Teds  and  Studies,  II.  2,  pp.  146  f . ;  further. 
Fleck,  Wissenschaftliche  Reise  (Leipzig,  1837),  ii,  3,  and  the  trans,  by  Boruemaun,  Zeitschr. 
Wiss.  Theol.,  1844,  3.  Heft,  pp.  20  f. 

<8  It  cannot  be  insisted  too  often,  that  these  writers  were  not  trying  to  "  forgo  docu- 
ments." The  device  of  using  occasionally  the  first  person  (like  that  of  presenting  fictitious 
material  in  the  form  of  edicts  and  letters  in  full  official  dress;  see  above,  p.  1.50)  was  always 
adopted  with  a  literary  purpose,  never  chiefly  in  order  to  gain  credence  — though  this 
aim  may  possibly  also  have  been  present  in  some  cases. 


246  Ezra  Studies 

hand  are  as  numerous  in  7:28 — 9:15  (i.  e.,  in  the  "Ichstiick"!) 
as  in  chap.  10,  and  even  more  numerous  than  in  Neh.,  chaps.  8-10.** 
But  if  even  these  cherished  "I"  verses  were  composed  by  the 
Chronicler,  where  then  can  we  hope  to  find  traces  of  Ezra's  handi- 
work? Bertholet,  Comm.,  p.  xiv,  in  blissful  ignorance  of  the  true 
state  of  the  case,  writes  as  follows:  "Am  leichtesten  lasst  sich 
herausschalen,  was  Chr  von  jenen  Memoiren  in  unveriindertem 
Wortlaute  [!!]  mitteilt.  Es  ist  von  den  Esramemoiren:  7:27  — 
8:34,  9:1-15."  But  can  Bertholet  point  out,  anywhere  in  these 
sections,  half  a  dozen  consecutive  verses  which  (after  examining 
Geissler's  lists)  he  can  confidently  pronounce  free  of  the  suspicion 
of  being  at  least  "iiberarbeitet"?  On  the  contrary,  the  style  is 
everywhere  and  unmistakably  that  of  the  Chronicler.  And  the 
whole  argument  for  the  genuineness  of  these  "Ichsttlcke"  —  the 
supposed  ipsissima  verba  —  rests  on  the  assumption  that  they 
have  not  been  rewritten. 

To  all  this  must  be  added,  finally,  that  the  literary  qualities 
of  the  narrative  in  Ezr.  8-10  and  Neh.  8-10  are  exactly  those 
of  the  independent  narrative  in  I  and  II  Chron.  Reference  has 
already  been  made,  in  the  preceding  pages,  to  some  important 
illustrations  of  this  point.  Both  the  subject-matter  and  the  man- 
ner of  treating  it  are  the  Chronicler's  own.  The  proportion  of 
the  material  is  just  the  same  as  usual;  the  same  which  we  have 
remarked  in  the  opening  chapters  of  Ezr.,  for  example;  a  great 
deal  of  space  given  to  ecclesiastical  matters  and  machinery,  and 
the  minimum  of  narrative.  Levites  are  mustered,  and  temple 
vessels  numbered  and  weighed ;  feasts  are  celebrated,  and  reforms 
instituted  and  accepted  by  "the  congregation"  on  the  basis  of  the 
law.  The  Chronicler's  omnipresent  number  twelve  appears 
here  also;  thus,  in  8:3-14,  24,  35  (cf.  6:17),  10:25-43  (in  the 
original  form;  see  the  Greek  of  vss.  38  if.),  Neh.  9:4  f.,  twelve 
including  Ezra ;  see  the  Greek  text  at  the  beginning  of  vs.  0 ;  and 

io In  regard  ti>  the  chapters  in  Neh.,  however,  Geissler,  like  some  of  his  predecessors, 
is  strangely  blind.  He  writes  {lac.  cit.)  :  "  Auffallig  ist  cs,  dass  die  Gobeto  Esr.  9  :6-15,  Neh. 
9:6-37  viel  weniger  Verwandschaft  mit  der  Sprache  von  Ch  verraton  als  die  erzahlenden 
Abschnitte."  This  shows  how  very  slight  his  acquaintance  with  the  Chronicler  is.  These 
prayers,  like  all  the  many  others  which  the  Chronicler  introduces  into  his  history,  consist 
chiefly  of  a  tissue  of  quotations  from  Deut.,  wliich  was  the  favorite  devotional  book  of  tlie 
Jewish  community  throughout  the  most  of  the  Port-iau  and  Greek  periods,  uutil  it  was  finally 
supplanted  by  the  Psalms.  And  it  would  be  nothing  short  of  a  marvel  if  more  than  a  very 
few  traces  of  his  hand  should  appear,  oven  in  the  unusually  long  prayer  in  Neh.  Geissler 
speaks  of  the  section  Neh.  8-10  as  "  considerably  longer  "  (i.  e.,  for  the  purposes  of  his  linguis- 
tic investigation)  than  Ezr.  8-10.  But  it  is  really  shorter,  when  the  lists  of  names  and  the 
prayers  are  left  out  of  account. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator        247 

probably  also  originally  in  Neh.  8:4,  7  (cf.  Ezr.  2:2  =  Neh.7:7). 
The  didactic  utterance  in  Ezr.  8 :226  is  one  of  his  especial  favorites; 
see  II  Chron.  13:18,  14:7,  11,  15:2(!),  17:9  f,  20:6,  17,  20, 
24:20,  25:8  f.  The  usual  short  speeches  are  uttered,  e.  g.,  Ezr. 
8:28  f.,  10:2  fP.,  10  flP.,  Neh.  8:9  f.,  11.  Names  and  dates  are 
given  in  the  customary  profusion.  The  style  of  the  narration 
is  as  lively  as  ever.  Observe  the  following  very  characteristic 
touches,  which  remind  us  at  once  of  the  flashes  of  life  and  local 
color  which  appear  all   through    the   independent   narratives   of 

I  and  II  Chron.  Ezr.  8:15:  "And  I  gathered  them  together  fit 
the  river  at  AJiava,  and  there  we  encamped  three  days.'''' 
9:3:  '"I  rent  my  garment,  and  indled  out  the  hair  of  my  head 
and  of  my  beai-d.^''  10:6:  "Then  Ezra  arose  ....  and  icent 
into  the  chamber  of  Jehohanan  the  son  of  Eliashib."  Vs.  9: 
"And  all  the  people  sat  in  the  broad  i^lace  before  the  Jionse  of 
God,  trembling  because  of  this  matter,  and  because  of  tJte  gre(d 
rain''''  (see  also  vs.  13).  Neh.  8:1:  "And  all  the  people  gathered 
themselves  together  as  one  man  into  the  broad  place  before  the 
icater  gate''''  (see  also  vs.  16).  Vs.  5:  "And  Ezra  opened  the 
book  in  the  sight  of  all  the  people — for  lie  was  above  all  the 
people^^  (cf.  vs.  4,  and  II  Chron.  6:13!),  "and  when  he  opened 
it,  all  the  people  stood  up.''''  9:4:  The  Levites  "■stood  up  upon 
the  stairs.''''     Cf.  the  passages  cited  above,  pp.  233  f. 

The  Chronicler's  "creation  of  the  character"  of  Ezra  is  not  an 
especially  noteworthy  achievement  for  him.  His  immediate  pur- 
pose drew  the  indistinct  outlines.  To  what  I  wrote  regarding 
this  matter  in  my  Com}).,  pp.  57-62,  the  following  may  be  added, 
as  to  considerations  which  must  have  chiefly  influenced  him  in 
fashioning  the  story.  It  was  necessary  that  the  sin  of  inter- 
marriage with  foreigners — the  thing  which  the  Samaritans  had 
done — should  be  severely  scored.  There  was  only  one  natural 
way  to  do  this,  namely,  by  telling  how  the  returned  exiles  once 
fell  into  this  evil  way  (in  their  partial  innocence!),'^''  were  rebuked 
by  one  who  had  authority ;  and  how  they  then  gave  solemn 
promise,  in  public  assembly,  to  do  so  no  more.  Given  the 
obvious  necessities  of  the  Chronicler's  aim,  and  the  creation 
of   "  Ezra   the  scribe "  just  as  he   appears,  and  the  general  out- 

5" As  the  narrative  everywhere  says  or  implies,  the  people  had  sinned  grievously  in 
neglecting  the  law;  and  yet  tlicy  had  tlie  partial  excuse  that  its  use  had  for  a  long  time  and 
of  necessity  been  suspended,  and  there  had  been  no  "expert  scribe"  to  teach  it  to  them  (cf. 

II  Chron.  15:3!). 


248  Ezra  Studies 

line  of  the  events  in  which  he  figured,  follow  as  matters  of  course. 
Compare  also  what  is  said  below,  regarding  the  character  of 
Nehemiah. 

4.    The  Chronicler'' s  Narrative  of  Nehemiah 

What  has  just  been  said  in  regard  to  the  story  of  Ezra  can 
also  be  said,  muiatis  mutandis,  of  the  considerable  addition  to  the 
Nehemiah  memoir  which  the  Chronicler  has  made;  namely,  Neh. 
7:1-69;^^  11:1 — 13:31.  These  two  passages,  when  joined  together 
by  the  removal  of  the  interpolated  section  7:70 — 10:40,  form  a 
solid  block  of  the  Chronicler's  own  very  characteristic  material, 
self -consistent,  perfectly  comprehensible  in  every  part,  and  in  the 
same  order  and  extent  which  he  himself  originally  gave  it; 
excepting,  of  course,  that  the  text  has  suffered  some  corruption. 
It  is  all  the  unaided  work  of  his  hand,  and  there  is  no  part  of  it 
concerning  which  there  can  be  any  reasonable  doubt  when  the 
evidence  has  been  examined.  I  presented  the  argument  briefly 
in  my  Comp.,  pp.  89-49,  and  the  force  of  what  was  said  there  is 
much  increased  by  the  demonstration  of  the  Chronicler's  aims  and 
characteristics  which  I  have  given  here. 

11:1  is  the  immediate  and  necessary  continuation  of  7:69, 
Just  as  soon  as  the  statistics  are  finished,  and  the  narrative  is 
resumed  in  12:27  ff.,  it  is  the  Chronicler,  unmistakably,  who  is 
the  narrator.  The  Nehemiah  who  told  his  story  in  chaps.  1-6 
was  a  man  of  affairs;  truly  religious,  but  giving  no  sign  of  any 
interest  in  the  ritual  of  the  temple.  But  the  Nehemiah  of  12:27 — 
13:31  is  simply  Ezra  (i.  e.,  the  Chronicler)  under  another  name. 
Subject-matter,  manner,  language,  and  style,  all  bear  the  same 
witness  in  every  paragraph ;  and  here  also,  as  in  Ezra,  it  is  pre- 
cisely the  "Ichstiicke"  which  are  most  characteristically  and 
certainly  the  composition  of  the  Chronicler.  The  current  "analy- 
sis" of  12:27-43,  which  saves  for  Nehemiah  every  verse  which 
happens  to  contain  "I"  'or  "me,"  and  pronounces  all  the  others 
"edited,"  is  a  curious  specimen  of  literary  criticism.  The  fact  is, 
there  is  no  excuse  for  analysis  here  anywhere.  In  vss.  37  ff.  we 
see  once  more  the  Chronicler's  ever-present  interest  in  the  topog- 
raphy and  buildings  of  Jerusalem  (above,  p.  216).  In  chap.  13 
the  main  features  of  those  orthodox  institutions  in  the  interest  of 
which    the    whole    history    Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  was  composed    are 

51  As  I  have  already  said  (p.  226),  I  suspect  the  passage  6:16-19.  It  seems  to  mo  safer, 
however,  to  leave  it  with  the  Neh.  memoir  for  the  present.    7 :  69  is  7 :  68  in  Baer's  edition. 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         249 

brought  forward  for  the  last  time.  "Ezra"  had  recently  given 
them  his  powerful  support,  and  now  Nehemiah  is  made  to  do  the 
same — often  in  a  remarkably  similar  form  of  words;  adopting,  in 
fact,  the  peculiar  language  of  the  Chronicler.  There  is  the  zeal 
for  the  pure  blood  of  Israel,  vss.  1-4,  23-28;  the  care  for  the 
perquisites  of  the  temple  officials,  vss.  5-13,  30  (cf.  especially 
10:35-40!);  the  rebuke  of  those  who  break  the  sabbath,  and 
especially  of  those  of  the  "people  of  the  land"  who  bring  wares 
to  Jerusalem  for  sale  on  that  day,  vss.  15-22  (cf.  especially  10:32!) ; 
and,  most  striking  of  all,  the  curious  veiled  allusion  to  the  Samar- 
itan schism,  in  vss.  28  f.  (see  above,  p.  235,  and  Cornp.,  p.  48)." 
The  circumstantial  manner  of  the  narrative  is  the  one  with  which 
we  are  familiar;  see  for  instance  12:31  fP.  (where  the  Chronicler's 
personal  leaning  toward  Ezra  appears  in  vs.  36!),  13:8,  21,  24  f. 
In  all  this,  again,  as  in  the  story  of  Ezra,  there  is  nothing  what- 
ever to  indicate  a  written  source. 

The  lists  in  chaps.  7,  11,  and  12  were  very  important,  from 
the  Chronicler's  standpoint.  This  was  his  final  presentation  of 
the  historical  antecedents  of  the  Jewish  official  church,  bringing 
down  "the  true  Israel"  almost  to  his  own  day.  In  7:5  Nehemiah 
is  made  to  "gather  together  the  nobles,  and  the  rulers,  and  the 
people,  that  they  might  be  reckoned  by  genealogy."  The  prin- 
cipal result  of  this  gathering  was  the  finding  of  the  "book  of 
the  genealogy  of  those  who  came  up,"  which  is  evidently  repre- 
sented as  containing  not  only  7:6-G9,  but  also  11:1-36.  Further 
'fruit  of  this  effort  on  the  part  of  Nehemiah  is  given  in  12: 1-26. 
As  has  already  been  remarked,  the  Chronicler  believed  Nehemiah 
to  have  flourished  under  Artaxerxes  II ;  he  therefore  would  natu- 
rally have  supposed  him  to  survive  until  the  time  of  Jaddua 
(12:11)  and  Darius  III  (12:22),  and  could  easily  represent  him 
as  the  compiler  of  all  these  lists  in  chap.  12.^'^ 

In  his  list  of  those  who  helped  to  build  the  wall,  in  the  time  of 
Nehemiah,  Neh.  3:1-32,  the  Chronicler  presents  the  usual  names; 
and  doubtless  rejoiced  the  hearts  of  many  of  his  contemporaries. 
For  specific  marks  of  his  hand  here,  see  Comp.,  pp.  37  f. 

52  It  may  be  that  the  Chronicler  believed  Nehemiah  to  have  been  living  at  the  time  of  the 
rupture  with  the  Samaritans,  but  that  he  did  not  quite  dare  to  connect  him  definitely  with 
the  event.    Compare  what  is  said,  below,  in  regard  to  his  chronology  of  Nehemiah. 

5:*  Hence  in  II  Mace.  2:1.3  Nehemiah  is  identified  with  the  Chronicler,  or  at  all  events  is 
declared  to  have  been  the  one  who  collected  the  documents  embodied  in  the  compilation 
Chron.-Ezr.-Neh. !  As  for  the  "book  of  chronicles"  referred  to  in  12:23.  we  have  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  it  was  anything  more  than  one  of  this  writer's  fictitious  sources,  like  those 
which  have  received  mention  above. 


250  Ezra  Studies 

The  "great  list,"  7:6-69,  had  already  been  given  in  full  by 
the  Chronicler,  in  Ezr.  2:  1-07.  He  repeats  it  here,  partly 
because  of  its  fundamental  importance,  and  partly  because 
it  formed  an  integral  part  of  the  material  the  rest  of  which  he 
wished  to  present  in  11:1 — 12:20.  It  is  entirely  his  own  com- 
position, and  (like  everything  else  of  his)  is  put  together  with 
insufficient  care.  Hence  the  great  difficulties  it  has  always  pre- 
sented to  those  who  have  tried  to  take  it  seriously.  See,  for  example, 
Berth olet,  Comm.,  p.  8,  where  it  is  shown,  on  the  best  of  modern 
authority,  (1)  that  this  cannot  possibly  be  a  genuine  list  of 
returning  exiles;  and  (2)  that  it  cannot  ever  have  been  intended 
as  any  other  kind  of  a  list!" 

The  Nehemiah  of  chaps.  7  and  11-13,  as  already  observed,  is 
in  nearly  all  respects  the  same  character  as  the  Ezra  of  Ezr.  8-10, 
Neh.  8-10.  One  would  expect  that  a  writer  of  the  Chronicler's 
ability  would  at  least  have  given  the  latter  hero  some  pronounced 
characteristics  (other  than  a  mighty  fondness  for  Levites  and 
singers),  and  that  he  would  have  studied  Nehemiah's  memoir  for 
the  very  purpose  of  recognizing  salient  traits  which  he  could  then 
reproduce  in  his  own  added  chapters.  But  the  only  thing  of  this 
kind  which  he  has  done  is  to  introduce  into  chap,  13  several  of 
the  brief  interjected  prayers  (vss.  14,  22,  29,  31)  which  are  so 
striking  a  feature  of  the  genuine  narrative  (3:30,  37,  5:19, 
0:14).  

In  general,  it  is  evident  that  the  Chronicler  became  an  editor 
more  from  necessity  than  from  choice.  By  taste  and  gift  he  was 
a  novelist.  He  would  doubtless  have  preferred  to  give  freer  rein 
to  his  imagination  in  composing  the  story  of  the  Jews  and  their 

54  As  has  already  been  observed,  the  names  in  these  manifold  tables  of  the  Chronicler 
are  largely  or  wholly  those  of  his  orthodox  contemporaries.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
what  lay  beneath  the  express  degradation  of  certain  families,  7 :  61  f ,,  63  tf .  It  may  be 
worth  while  to  recall  the  fact  that  Delaiah  (vs,  62)  is  given  in  the  Elephantine  papyrus  as 
the  name  of  Sanaballat's  elder  son  ;  though  the  coincidence  maybe  only  accidental.  Regarding 
the  number  of  "the  whole  congregation,"  42,  360  (so  in  all  the  texts,  and  therefore  pretty 
certainly  original),  the  conjecture  may  be  hazarded  that  it  is  the  result  of  one  of  the  Chron- 
icler's computations.  Josephus,  Antt.,  x,  8,  5,  reckons  3,513  years  from  the  creation  down  to 
the  destruction  of  the  temple.  If  we  suppose  the  Chronicler  to  have  reckoned  the  number 
at  3,530,  his  total  number  of  the  new  congregation  would  have  included  twelve  men  for 
each  year  of  that  period.  To  show  the  possibility  of  some  such  computation:  creation  to 
Exodus  =  2,666  years,  according  to  MT;  Exodus  to  building  of  temple  =  440  years,  in  the 
Greek  version  of  I  Kings  6:1;  36=  remaining  years  of  Solomon  (I  Chron.  3:2,  9:;50); 
258  =  synchronistic  years  of  the  two  kingdoms,  in  MT ;  fall  of  Samaria  to  destruction  of 
temple  =  134  years,  in  MT,  Total,  3,534  years.  After  deducting  the  four  years  which  are 
counted  twice,  where  those  five  periods  overlap,  final  result,  3,530  years.  Regarding  the 
Chronicler's  infatuation  for  the  number  twelve,  see  above,  pp.  222,  246, 


The  Chronicler  as  Editor  and  as  Narrator         251 

antecedents.  But  he  was  now  writing  not  to  interest,  but  with 
an  apologetic  purpose.  The  support  of  the  recognized  history  was 
indispensable;  outside  this,  it  was  important  that  he  should  con- 
fine himself  to  what  was  necessary.  In  the  pre-exilic  period,  he 
could  not  well  avoid  incorporating  at  least  a  part  of  the  well-known 
history  of  every  king  of  Judah.  In  the  post-exilic  period,  he 
certainly  seems  to  have  made  the  most  of  the  two  documents  which 
were  available.  And  his  view  of  the  history  ultimately 
gained  general  acceptance,  though  it  seems  to  have  made  its 
way  slowly.  The  evidence  that  he  was  an  earnest  and  devout  man 
is  abundant  and  striking.  No  one  ever  believed  more  sincerely 
than  he  that  human  prosperity  rests  only  upon  the  fear  of  God; 
and  from  time  to  time,  throughout  his  history,  he  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  his  characters  some  expression  of  his  own  conviction, 
that  if  the  people,  all  through  the  land,  could  be  thoroughly 
instructed  in  the  divine  truth,  all  their  serious  troubles  would 
be  over. 


VIII 

THE  EZRA  STORY  IN  ITS  ORIGINAL  SEQUENCE 

Any  attempt  to  "restore  the  original  form"  of  an  ancient 
document,  by  rearranging  its  chapters,  paragraphs,  or  verses, 
ought  to  be  met  with  suspicion  and  subjected  to  the  severest 
criticism.  In  the  great  majority  of  cases,  either  the  traditional 
form  can  fairly  claim  to  be  the  original  one,  in  spite  of  seeming 
contradictions,  or  else  the  evidence  enabling  us  to  make  a  sure 
restoration  is  not  to  be  had.  Many  of  the  grave  inconsistencies 
which  trouble  us  did  not  disturb  the  author  himself,  simply 
because  he  understood,  better  than  we  do,  what  he  meant  to  say. 
Even  where  it  is  a  demonstrated  fact  that  the  text  which  lies 
before  us  has  suffered  from  transposition  of  some  sort,  it  is 
not  enough  for  the  would-be  restorer  to  rearrange  the  passages 
logically,  or  symmetrically,  or  so  as  to  bring  the  whole  into  per- 
fect accord  with  some  plausible  theory.  Very  many  ancient 
writers  did  not  bind  themselves  to  observe  logical  sequence;  did 
not  care  especially  for  symmetry ;  and  would  have  been  greatly 
astonished,  or  angered,  or  amused,  if  they  could  have  heard 
attributed  to  them  the  views  which  they  are  now  believed  to 
have  held.  It  is  not  our  concern,  after  all,  to  find  the  best  pos- 
sible arrangement  of  the  material — that  would  often  be  very 
easy;  our  business  is  to  find  the  arrangement  actually  made  by 
the  author— and  that  is  usually  very  difficult.  Nevertheless, 
perfectly  convincing  reconstructions  by  transposition,  based  solely 
on  internal  evidence,  are  sometimes  possible;  the  history  of 
literature  contains  a  good  many  instances.  In  each  case  it  is 
simply  a  question  of  whether  the  evidence  can  satisfy  the  rigor- 
ous tests  which  the  nature  of  the  problem  demands.  The  pro- 
posed new  arrangement  must  really  remove  the  difficiilties  which 
it  is  designed  to  overcome;  it  must  create  no  new  difficulties;  it 
must  enable  us  to  explain  how  the  disorder  was  brought  about; 
it  must  give  clear  evidence  of  being  the  order  originally  planned 
by  the  author  himself,  and  must  harmonize  with  all  that  we  cer- 
tainly know  regarding  his  purposes  and  methods;  and  it  must  be 
recognized  as  the  ())ilij  order  which  can  meet  these  requirements. 

252 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  253 

If  any  single  link  in  the  chain  of  evidence  is  missing,  or  defective, 
the  critical  theory  may  be  tolerated,  but  it  cannot  be  accepted  as 
demonstrated.  I  am  confident  that  it  will  be  agreed  that  the 
demonstration  given  in  the  following  pages  is  a  conclusive  one, 
and  that  this  is  a  case  in  which  the  original  order  of  a  disarranged 
narrative  has  been  restored  with  certainty. 

In  all  the  narrative  part  of  the  Old  Testament,  there  is  no- 
where else  such  an  appearance  of  chaos  as  in  the  story  of  Ezra, 
as  it  stands  in  our  received  text.  Part  of  it  is  found  in  one 
place,  and  part  in  another.  Moreover,  the  two  principal  frag- 
ments, thus  separated  from  each  other,  are  incoherent  in  them- 
selves. No  one  of  our  modern  interpreters  has  succeeded  in 
obtaining  a  continuous  and  comprehensible  account  of  events 
from  either  Ezr.  7-10  or  Neh.  8-10.  The  sequence  of  the  sev- 
eral scenes  is  plainly  out  of  order;  the  chronology  is  all  wrong; 
and  the  bearing  of  the  successive  (?)  incidents  upon  one  another 
is  far  from  clear.  Ezra  makes  his  journey  to  Judea  in  order  to 
teach  and  administer  the  law  (Ezr.  7: 10,  14,  25  f.),  but  it  is  not 
until  thirteen  years  (!)  after  his  arrival  that  he  first  presents  it 
to  the  people  (Neh.  8:2,  cf.  1:1  and  Ezr.  7:8).  In  Ezr.  9,  the 
people  are  rebuked  for  a  grievous  sin  against  the  law,  the  manner 
of  the  rebuke  implying  obviously  that  the  law  was  already  known 
to  them;  and  their  representative,  indeed,  after  confessing  the 
transgression,  proposes  to  make  reparation  '■'■  according  to  the 
law''''  (10:3).'     But  in  the  narrative  as  it  now  lies  before  us,  the 

iThat  the  public  reading  of  the  law  had  already  taken  place,  is  necessarily  implied 
not  only  in  10:3,  but  also,  and  only  a  little  less  obviously,  in  9: 1,  4,  10  if.,  14.  The  "com- 
mandments of  God,"  which  the  people  had  "forsaken"  and  "broken,"  were  the  command- 
ments of  the  written  law;  they  could  not  possibly  have  been  anything  else.  Those  who 
"trembled  at  the  words  of  the  God  of  Israel"  (9:4,  10:3)  were  those  who  were  dismayed  at 
the  transgression  of  statutes  which  were  definitely  known  to  them  ;  the  con- 
text in  each  case  makes  this  certain.  Bertholet,  in  his  remarks  on  Ezr.  9:1  (Conim., 
pp.  38  f.),  declares  that  Ezra's  reform  in  the  matter  of  foreign  wives  was  "  vorbereitet  durch 
die  Gedankenwelt  des  Deuteronomiums,  eines  Hesekiel,  Maleachi  und  Tritojesaja,"  but 
this  is  a  very  lame  explanation.  It  is  sufficiently  obvious  that  when  Ezra  tore  his  clothes, 
pulled  out  some  of  the  hair  of  his  head  and  beard,  and  spoke  and  prayed  in  such  passionate 
language  of  the  "great  guilt"  of  the  people,  he  was  not  reproaching  them  for  a  sin  against 
a  Gedankenvjeltf  In  order  to  argue  in  this  way,  it  is  necessary  that  one  should  first  shut 
his  eyes.  It  is  not  only  said,  in  so  many  words  (10:3),  that  the  people  already  know  the 
Torah,  the  fact  is  also  certainly  implied  in  the  account  of  the  way  in  which  they  received 
Ezra's  rebuke  (10:2ff.,  12  ff.).  In  Neh.  8:9,  13  it  is  made  plain  that  the  commandments  of 
the  law  were  quite  new  to  all,  princes,  priests,  and  common  people  alike,  when  Ezra  first 
read  them.  In  Ezra  9  and  10,  on  tlie  contrary,  the  people  accept  as  indisputable  the  cliarge 
that  they  have  grievously  transgressed  ;  they  themselves  know  what  command- 
ments have  been  broken;  and  Ezra  in  his  prayer  for  them  actually  quotes  (loosely)  the 
words  of  Lev.  18:24  f.,  27,  Deut.  7:3,  23:7,  11:8.  This  was  a  part  of  that  law  which  he  had 
come  to  teach  —  and  had  already  taught.  What  is  more,  it  was  not  Ezra  who  dis- 
covered   this    "trespass    of    the    exiles,"    it    was    certain    of    their    own 


254  Ezra  Studies 

law  had  not  yet  been  made  known!  Furthermore,  although  this 
evil  of  mixed  marriages  is  discovered  and  corrected  soon  after 
Ezra's  arrival  in  Jerusalem,  the  time  when  the  people  formally 
repent  of  it,  in  solemn  assembly,  and  vow  never  to  do  so  again, 
is  thirteen  years  later  (Neh.  9:1). 

The  manifest  incongruity  between  Neh.  8  and  the  two  follow- 
ing chapters  has  also  been  the  subject  of  much  comment.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  narrative  as  it  now  stands  wdiicli  can  account 
for  the  sackcloth  and  ashes  in  9:-l.  Or  it  would  be  a  more  cor- 
rect statement  of  the  case  to  say,  that  the  reason  for  the  mourn- 
ing is  given,  but  is  incomprehensible  in  the  present 
form  of  the  story.  Kosters,  Wiederherstelhmg  Israels  {18{}d), 
pp.  85  f.,  remarks  that  the  occasion  of  the  penitential  ceremony 
in  chap.  9  was,  plainly,  the  separation  of  Israel  from  foreigners. 
This  is  indeed  made  evident  by  the  two  passages,  9 : 2  and 
10:29-31;  the  former  of  which  must  necessarily  be  regarded, 
because  of  its  position,  as  giving  the  principal  reason  for  the 
assembly,  while  the  other,  for  a  like  reason,  must  be  held  to  give 
the  primary  feature  of  the  solemn  covenant.^  Wellhausen,  Isra- 
elUische  und  judische  Geschichte\  p.  135,  n.  2,  feels  the  same 
difficulty  as  Kosters,  and  says:  "Wunderlich  an  seiner  Stelle  ist 
der  erste  Satz  von  Neh.  9:2."  But  Wellhausen  certainly  would 
not  wish  to  suggest  that  the  first  clause  of  this  verse  is  not  in  its 
right  place  in  the  chapter.  The  trouble  is,  of  course,  that 
the  preceding  narration  has  not  prepared  the  way  for  such  a 
scene  as  this.  That  is,  just  as  Ezr.  9  must  have  been  preceded 
by  an  account  of  the  public  reading  of  the  law,  so  Neh.  9  must 
have  followed  directly  after  a  chapter  which  told  of  the  separation 
from  foreign  wives. 

-  And  just  here  the  fact  also  stares  us  in  the  face  that  the  story 
of  Ezra's  reform  is  not  suitably  concluded  by  Ezr.  10: 4:4,  even 
when  the  verse  is  restored  to  its  original  form   (see  below).      We 

leaders.  9:1  says:  "When  these  things  were  finished,  the  chief  men  drew  near  to  me, 
saying:  The  people  of  Israel  ....  iiave  not  separated  themselves  from  the  peoples  of  the 
land,"  etc.,  and  these  princes  thereupon  proceet?  to  quote  from  the  laws  in  question  ivss.  1,2)! 
This  is  either  the  sequel  of  Neii.  8,  or  else  it  is  inexplicable. 

2  No  neater  demonstration  of  this  exegetical  necessity  could  be  asked  than  is  furnished 
by  the  "  Neapolitan  Synopsis"  of  the  Old  Testament,  published  by  Lagarde  in  his  Septua- 
ginta  Studien  II.  The  following  is  its  summary  of  that  part  of  the  Ezra  narrative  which  is 
contained  in  the  book  of  Nehemiah  (ilnd.,  p.  84,  11.  27-34) :  .  .  .  .  xal  6  ^ei^'EaSpas  avayiv<^(rKu,v 
SieaTeWev  e7ri<rTr)|ui)7  Kvpiov,  o  6e  Ka'o^  crvi'fiKef  eV  TJj  ai'ayi'u>aei. .     xai  e7roir)<re  to  Tracrxa  .     "ai.  cf  tu) 

e^5d/naJ  /urji'l  eTToirjo-e   Trji'  VTqa-Teiai'  /cat  Tr/r  o-Kr;>'07rT)7iai'  to5  yeypaiTTaL 'E<r6pas  6e  ewpaKio^  (iri- 

fiiyei<xa<;  yvvaiKa';  a^ioTiou?  Tois  'E^paioi?,  7r«i'Si)<Ta?,  eTreitrc  Trai'Ta^  inayyei\a<T8aL  (|)uAoTT€ti'  TOC  vofiov 
Toil  6eov,  /cal  efe^aAc  jd?  yuraiica?  io5  Trapdvonov  ya/iOf.     Ka'i  M/xoirav  (jtvXd^ai  TOi'  I'O^oi'. 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  255 

should  expect  to  see  at  least  some  promise  for  the  future,  some 
indication  that  the  misery,  the  crime  against  human  nature, 
wrought  on  this  occasion  made  such  an  impression  on  the  people 
that  they  took  measures  to  prevent  the  recurrence  of  anything  of 
the  sort.  The  subject  could  not  have  been  dismissed  with  this 
one  verse  following  the  list  of  names.  No  modern  commentator 
has  doubted  that  the  original  narrative  continuation  has  been 
accidentally  cut  off,  or  dis[)laced,  in  some  way. 

It  is  abundantly  evident,  from  all  this,  that  the  trouble  with 
the  story  of  Ezra  lies  simply  in  the  transposition  of  a  passage, 
namely  the  passage  which  contains  the  account  of  the  reading  of 
the  law.  Aside  from  the  internal  evidence,  we  have  also  external 
evidence  that  transposition  of  some  sort  took  place,  for  in  the  old 
Greek  version  (I  Esdras)  and  Josephus  the  four  Ezra  chapters 
(7-10)  are  immediately  followed  by  the  three  Nehemiah 
chapters  (8-10).^  The  sequence  of  the  chapters  there  is  an 
absolutely  impossible  one,  to  be  sure,  yet  this  witness  to  the  tradi- 
tion that  all  seven  of  them  originally  formed  one  continu- 
ous piece  is  very  valuable. 

The  obvious  way  of  removing  all  the  dijQEiculties  thus  far  men- 
tioned is,  as  I  showed  in  my  Composiiion,  pp.  29-34,  to  restore 
Nell.  8  to  its  original  place  between  Ezr.  8  and  9.  The  key  to 
the  solution  of  the  whole  problem  lies  in  the  neglected  and  mis- 
understood passage  Neh.  7:70-73  (69-72).  If  it  had  not  been 
for  these  four  verses,  the  disarrangement  of  the  Ezra  story  would 
never  have  taken  place;  in  consequence,  the  restoration  of  the 
true  order  must  begin  with  them.  As  soon  as  the  peculiarities  of 
their  form  and  surroundings  are  observed,  it  becomes  evident  that 
they  furnish  the  desired  explanation  of  the  whole  process.  All 
modern  interpreters  have  regarded  Neh.  7: 70-73  as  a  mere  variant 
of  Ezr.  2:68-70.  Some  ancient  interpreter  conceived  the  same 
idea,  and  wrought  great  mischief  as  a  result.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  two  passages  differ  considerably  in  their  contents,  and  were 
written  for  very  different  occasions.  Why  the  remarkable  dis- 
agreement between  them,  and  who  has  ever  explained  it? 
There  is  a  third  passage,  I  Chron.  29:6-8,  which  resembles  them 
almost  as  closely  as  they  resemble  each  other,  and  all  three 
simply  illustrate  the  Chronicler's  well-known  habit  of  repeating 
himself, 

3  See  above,  pp.  31  f. 


256  Ezra  Studies 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  narrative  of  the  first  public 
reading  of  the  law,  which  is  the  immediate  sequel  of  the 
four  verses  mentioned,  must  have  preceded  Ezr.  9.  That  being 
the  case,  it  is  startling  to  observe  that  the  four  verses  are  the 
natural  continuation  of  Ezr.  8.  That  is,  in  fact,  the  only 
context  which  suits  them.  Ezr.  8:33-36  had  just  recounted  how 
the  gifts  of  gold  and  silver  brought  from  Babylon  were  delivered 
in  Jerusalem,  where  they  were  to  be  used  "for  the  service  of  the 
house  of  God"  (7:19,  8:25) ;  how  the  sacrifices  were  then  offered 
in  the  temple ;  and  how,  finally,  the  king's  satraps  and  governors 
in  the  Transflumen  gave  their  aid  to  the  cult  in  Jerusalem  (8:36). 
Then  would  follow,  almost  of  necessity,  some  statement  regarding 
the  aid  which  the  leaders  of  the  Jews  themselves  gave  to  the 
service  of  the  temple  (TOSJ^b/jb ,  Neh.  7:70).  This  is  precisely 
what  we  have  in  Neh.  7:70-72.  Furthermore,  the  statement  that 
"the  priests,  the  Levites,  and  the  people,"  and  so  on,  those  who 
had  come  from  Babylonia,  settled  down  "in  their  cities"  (vs.  73rt) 
is  just  as  indispensable  at  the  end  of  the  story  of  the  expedition 
under  Ezra  (Ezr.  8)  as  it  was  in  the  case  of  that  under  Zerubbabel 
and  Jeshua  (Ezr.  2).  To  sum  the  matter  up,  the  passage  Neh. 
7:70-73  is  necessary  as  the  sequel  of  Ezr.  8;  while  it  is  quite  out 
of  place  in  the  story  of  Nehemiah,  and  inexplicable  as  a  variant 
of  Ezr.  2:68-70. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  if  we  should  cut  out  the  whole  passage 
Neh.  7:70(69) — 8:18  from  its  present  context,  and  put  it  between 
Ezr.  8  and  9,  every  difiiculty  resulting  from  the  present  order  of 
chapters  and  sections  in  the  Ezra  story  would  disappear.  In 
addition  to  the  points  already  mentioned,  the  sore  need  of  a  sequel 
to  Ezr.  10:44  and  of  a  suitable  context  for  Neh.  9:  If.  would 
also  be  supplied,  the  one  chapter  being  followed  directly  by  the 
other.  The  probability  that  we  have  found  at  last  the  passage 
whose  transposition  brought  about  all  the  mischief  in  Ezra- 
Nehemiah  becomes  at  once  very  strong. 

But  it  is  first  necessary  to  show  why  and  how  the  transfer  was 
made,  and  how  it  happened  that  a  part  of  the  Ezra  story  was  put 
into  the  book  of  Nehemiah.  The  mistaken  arrangement  was  made 
by  a  copyist;  and  as  already  observed,  the  resemblance  of  the 
passage  Neh.  7:70-73  to  its  counterpart  Ezr.  2:68-70  was  the 
cause  of  the  error.  The  two  passages  would  inevitably  seem  to  a 
copyist  to  be  one  and  the  same,  with  their  generally  identical 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  257 

phraseology;*  and  what  is  more,  each  is  immediately  con- 
tinued by  the  words:  "And  when  the  seventh  month  was 
come,  the  children  of  Israel  being  in  their  cities,  the  people 
assembled."  The  man  who  wrought  the  mischief,  therefore,  hold- 
ing in  his  memory  the  continuation  of  the  "great  list"  Ezr. 
2:2-67  by  verses  68-70  and  3:1,  attached  the  similar  passage,  with 
its  sequel,  the  story  of  the  reading  of  the  law,  to  the  end  of  the 
same  list  in  Nehemiah.  He  had  just  copied,  we  may  suppose,  the 
book  of  Ezra  as  far  as  8:36,  and  then  saw  in  the  next  following 
section  what  he  believed  to  be  the  true  sequel  of  the  list  in  Neh.  7. 
He  accordingly  transferred  the  section,  which  of  course  included 
the  story  of  the  reading  of  the  law  (cf.  Neh.  7:736  and  the  begin- 
ning of  8:1  with  Ezr.  3:1!),  to  the  book  of  Nehemiah.^ 

This  transfer  was  an  easy  one,  requiring  hardly  any  thought 
at  all;  but  when  it  was  once  made  it  was  certain  to  be  permanent, 
at  least  so  far  as  the  verses  70-73a  were  concerned,  since  they 
would  henceforth  always  be  regarded  as  a  mere  repetition  of 
Ezr.  2:68-70,  Moreover,  the  transfer — and  this  was  possibly 
not  foreseen  at  first  by  the  one  who  made  it  —  rendered  a  sec- 
ond transposition  absolutely  necessary.  The  chapters 
containing  the  story  of  the  people's  repentance,  and  of  the 
covenant  which  they  made,  alluded  in  more  than  one  place  to 
the  puhlic  reading  of  the  law  by  Ezra  (Neh.  9:  3,  10:  29  f.,  35, 
37),  and  it  was  therefore  obviously  and  totally  impossible  that 
they  should  precede  Neh.  8. .  The  only  thing  that  could  be 
done  with  them  was  to  put  them  immediately  after  the  last- 
named  chapter.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  was  done  by 
the  same  copyist-editor  who  had  begun  the  rearrangement  —  for 
he  cannot  have  failed  to  see  the  necessity  of  this  second  step; 

*The  mention  of  the  "Tirshatha"  in  Neh.  7:70  would  also  immediately  suggest  the 
occurrence  of  the  word  just  before,  in  vs.  65  (Ezr.  2  :63) ! 

5  Such  transpositions,  more  or  less  consciously  made,  are  familiar  enough  in  the  history 
of  tlie  manuscript  transmission  of  ancient  documents.  It  sometimes  happens,  indeed,  that 
transcribers  perform  feats  which  might  well  have  been  deemed  impossible.  For  example, 
in  the  manuscripts  of  the  Palestinian  Syriac  Lectionary,  immediately  after  John  8:2  stands 
a  colophon,  "End  of  the  Gospid  of  John,''  etc.!  The  explanation  is  presumably  this,  that  in 
some  old  manuscripts  of  the  Gospels  the  pericope  de  adultera,  7:53—8:11,  was  placed  at  the 
end  as  a  sort  of  appendix,  and  that  in  at  least  one  such  codex  the  transposed  section  con- 
tained merely  8:3-11  (cf.  the  transposition  of  Neh.  7:73  ff.,  instead  of  vss.  70  fF.,  in  I  Esdras!). 
Then,  in  the  Syriac  manuscript  from  which  the  text  of  the  Lectionary  was  derived,  this 
appendix,  8:3-11,  was  again  transferred,  this  time  being  put  back  into  what  was 
naturally  supposed  to  be  its  original  place  (cf.  I  Esdras).  But  along  with  it  was 
transferred  the  colophon  of  the  Gospel,  which  stood  just  before  it!  (See  the 
Palest.  Syr.  Led.,  od.  Lewi^  and  (Jibson,  p.  xv,  where  an  explanation  similar  to  this  is 
given  on  the  authority  of  Reudol  Harris.)  This  is  by  no  means  an  isolated  instance  of  the 
stupidity  of  a  copyist. 


258  Ezra  Studies 

but  whether  by  him  or  by  another,  it  must  in  any  case  have  been 
accomplished  very  soon.  Thus  it  came  about  that  the  "great 
list"  in  Neh.  7  received  this  most  incongruous  sequel:  the 
account  of  the  gifts  to  the  temple  on  Ezra's  arrival  (Neh.  7:  70- 
73a) ;  the  reading  of  the  law  (736 — 8:  18) ;  and  the  two  chapters 
(Neh.  9f.)  which  had  originally  formed  the  end  of  the  Ezra 
story,  immediately  preceding  the  first  chapter  of  Nehemiah. 
Ezr.  9  and  10  were  of  course  left  where  they  were,  as  the  account 
of  the  work  performed  by  Ezra  in  his  "first  period."  Thus  the 
books  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  received  their  present  shape, "^  by  a 
process  each  step  of  which  is  perfectly  comprehensible.  The 
first  step  was  almost  mechanical,  and  might  even  have  been 
purely  accidental;  the  rest  then  followed  inevitably. 

The  date  of  this  transposition  of  chapters  was  probably  near 
the  end  of  the  third  century  b.  c,  at  about  the  time  when  the 
Story  of  the  Three  Youths  was  interpolated  in  the  first  chapter 
of  Ezra,  as  already  described.  For  some  reason  which  we  can 
only  conjecture,'  the  rearranged  edition  completely  supplanted 
the  original  one.  Not  long  after,  some  one  made  the  attempt  to 
restore  the  Ezra  chapters  to  the  book  of  Ezra;  it  was  a  matter  of 
tradition  that  they  had  once  formed  a  part  of  it.  The  best  that 
he  could  do,  naturally,  was  to  chop  out  Neh.  7:73  (!)  — 10:40, 
and  put  it  between  Ezr.  10:44  and  Neh.  1:1;  and  this  did  not 
by  any  means  remove  the  existing  difficulties.  His  version 
gained  such  acceptance,  however,  that  it  was  the  standard  recen- 
sion at  least  from  the  early  part  of  the  second  century  b.  c.  until 
the  time  of  the  historian  Josephus  (cf.  what  I  have  said  in  regard 
to  "Edition  B"  in  the  chapter  dealing  with  the  Nature  and 
Origin  of  First  Esdras).  Even  before  the  time  of  this  last 
transposition,  the  interpolation  of  Nehemiah's  name  into  the  three 
ill-gotten  chapters  of  his  book  had  begun  to  take  place,  judging 
from  I   Esdr.    5:40    (=  Ezr.   2:63),  Nee/ita?(!)  kuI  'ATdapia^.^ 

GThe  mixing  of  the  Ezra  story  with  that  of  Nehemiah  naturally  brought  about  the 
interpolation  of  Nehemiah's  name  in  certain  passages  where  "the  governor"  was  men- 
tioned. On  the  form  and  history  of  these  interpolations  see  below,  the  notes  on  Neh.  8:9 
and  (especially)  10:2. 

'As  I  have  remarked  already  in  several  places,  the  evidence  seems  to  show  that  the 
Chronicler's  book  was  little  known  during  the  first  generation  or  two  after  it  was  written 
(neither  Bar  Sira  nor  the  author  of  Enoch  89:  72  had  ever  hrard  of  Ezra,  for  example).  It 
may  have  been  a  good  while  before  it  was  copied  at  all ;  then  when  its  real  vogue  began,  the 
copies  were  made  from  the  rearranged  and  interpolated  edition,  which  was  the  popular  one. 

SThis  means,  apparently,  that  in  some  text  older  than  Edition  B  the  name  "Nehe- 
miah "  had  been  interpolated  in  Neh.  7:65,  and  then  had  been  carried  over  thence,  through 
carelessness,  into  Ezr.  2:  63. 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  259 

This  interpolation  was  afterward  made  in  other  places  (already 
mentioned)  in  "Edition  A,"  and  their  presence  was  doubtless 
the  chief  reason  why  this  latter  recension  was  ultimately  made 
authoritative. 

I  print  here  the  story  of  Ezra  in  its  original  sequence,  as  the 
best  possible  demonstration  of  the  correctness  of  the  conclusions 
just  stated.  How  does  one  who  is  attempting  to  restore  a  dis- 
sected map  or  picture  know  when  he  has  succeeded?  The  story 
as  here  arranged  shows  perfect  order  instead  of  complete  chaos, 
the  obvious  design  of  the  narrator  carried  out  in  a  harmonious 
way  from  beginning  to  end.  It  is  the  one  arrangement  to  which 
logic  compels,  a  dozen  different  lines  of  argument  all  pointing  in 
the  same  direction.  And  it  is  the  only  arrangement  which  can 
meet  all  the  tests  named  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter.  The 
comparison  of  the  dissected  picture  is  an  unjust  one  in  two 
respects,  since  (1)  it  suggests  numerous  pieces,  and  (2)  he  who 
restores  the  picture  has  no  need  to  explain  the  disorder  in  which 
he  found  it.  In  the  case  of  this  narrative,  the  shifting  of  one 
single  block,  Neh.  7:  70 — 8:  18,  brings  back  the  original  order 
of  the  Ezra  chapters — a  solution  whose  simplicity  puts  it  in 
strong  contrast  with  every  other  one  which  has  been  proposed; 
and  the  explanation  of  the  displacement,  a  thing  not  to  be 
dispensed  with,  is  provided.^ 

Ezra  goes  to  Jerusalem  in  order  to  bring  back  the  people  to 
the  neglected  and  forgotten  law  of  their  God,  i.  e.  the  Penta- 
teuch. He  is  sent  by  the  king,  who  gives  him  full  power,  and 
he  and  his  companions  carry  contributions  for  the  improvement 
of  the  temple  service.  Arriving  in  Jerusalem,  they  present  their 
gifts,  and  the  governor  and  the  leaders  of  the  people  also  contri- 
bute liberally.     Two  months  later,  at  the  beginning  of  the  sacred 

8  Professor  H.  P.  Smith,  in  his  Old  Testament  History,  adopts  my  restoration  of  the 
Ezra  story,  but  proposes  to  modify  it  in  one  respect,  suggesting  (P-  -^93,  n.  1)  that  the  list  in 
Neb.  7  also  belonged  originally  to  the  story  of  Ezra,  Ezr.  8:36  having  been  continued  by 
Neh.  7:5ff.  What  I  have  written  in  the  preceding  pages  is  perhaps  a  sufficient  answer  to 
such  a  suggestion,  but  I  will  add:  (I)  There  would  then  be  no  plausible  way  of  explaining 
the  presence  of  the  chapters  in  the  book  of  Nehemiah.  (2)  The  passage  7:70-73  would  be 
deprived  of  any  natural  connection;  and  it  would  look  like  a  mere  variant  (a  very  corrupt 
variant!)  of  Ezr.  2:68-70.  (3)  In  Ezr.  8  there  is  no  obvious  reason  for  a  census;  in  Neh.  7, 
on  the  contrary,  vs.  4  prepares  for  this  very  thing,  and  chap.  11  continues  it  without  a 
break!  The  Chronicler  represents  Nehemiah  as  interested  in  the  census  of  tiie  com- 
munity (see  also  above,  pp.  249  f.),  and  the  list  there  serves  an  important  purpose;  while  in 
the  Ezra  story  it  could  serve  no  purpose  at  all.    These  considerations  are  quite  decisive. 

Another  Old  Testament  scholar,  Professor  H.  G.  Mitchell,  accepts  some  of  my  conclu- 
sions while  rejecting  others  {Journal  of  Bib.  Lit., 1903,  pp.  92ff.).  I  think  it  will  bo  seen 
that  every  objection  which  he  raises  is  fully  mot  in  the  present  chapter.  His  own  hypothe- 
sis seems  to  me  to  leave  both  the  stories  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  in  a  hopeless  muddle. 


260  Ezra  Studies 

"seventh  month,"  Ezra  prepares  his  great  assembly  at  Jerusalem, 
and  reads  the  law  of  Moses  in  public.  The  first  fruit  of  the 
reading  (as  is  fitting)  was  joy  and  good  cheer,  for  the  people 
found  themselves  summoned  to  undertake  at  once  the  celebra- 
bration  of  a  festival  which  had  been  lost  to  sight.  But  results 
of  a  less  pleasant  nature  were  bound  to  come  soon.  The  restor- 
ing of  a  neglected  law  means  reform.  The  princes  had  heard, 
with  dismay,  the  statute  forbidding  intermarriage  with  the 
heathen,  and  now  come  to  Ezra  to  confess  the  sin  of  the  people. 
He  charges  the  guilty  ones  with  their  crime;  they  confess,  and 
agree  that  "the  law  must  be  followed"  (n"ir5  '^^^^.  »  Ezr. 
10:3).  A  thorough  work  of  investigation,  occupying  three 
months,  is  instituted,  and  all  the  foreign  wives  and  the  children 
born  of  them  are  sent  away.  Then,  after  a  breathing  spell  of 
about  three  weeks,  all  the  people  assemble  once  more  at  Jeru- 
salem, and  the  solemn  covenant,  which  crowns  the  work  of  Ezra, 
is  drawn  up  and  signed. 

Here  is  a  clear  and  consistent  story,  the  only  clear  and  con- 
sistent story  dealing  with  Ezra  that  has  ever  been  told  by  any 
one.  That  it  is  the  story  actually  told,  in  the  first  place,  by  the 
Chronicler  himself,  is  still  further  attested  by  the  chronology. 
The  dates  given  in  such  profusion  throughout  the  narrative  are 
now  all  intelligible  for  the  first  time.  No  other  single 
fact  could  give  so  striking  a  vindication  as  this  of  the  correctness 
of  my  restoration,  and  for  this  reason  I  have  printed  the  suc- 
cessive dates  in  the  margin,  so  that  their  mutual  relation  can  be 
seen  at  a  glance.  The  "unity  of  time"  in  the  story  also  deserves 
to  be  emphasized.  The  initial  date  of  Ezra's  undertaking,  accord- 
ing to  7:9,  was  the  first  day  of  the  first  month,"  in  the  seventh 
year  of  Artaxerxes;"  that  is,  April  1,''  398  b.  c.  The  whole  series 
of  events  of  which  he  is  the  hero'^  occupies  just  one  year  and 
twenty-four  days  (cf.  Neh.  9:1  with  Ezr.  10:17).  The  mul- 
tiple of  twelve  is  not  accidental;  notice  also  how  in  Ezr.  8:31 
the  date  of  the  actual  beginning  of  the  journey  is  given  as  the 
twelfth    day  of    the   first   month.     Compare   the   many  similar 

HI  Observe  that  the  Chronicler's  date  for  the  boginning  of  the  former  expedition, 
under  Cyrus,  was  also  the  first  day  of  the  first  month  (above,  pp.  131,  134). 

11  Artaxerxes  II  Mnemon;  see  above,  pp.  38  f.,  170,  239. 

12  Merely  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  I  have  used  this  inaccurate  terminology,  calling 
the  first  month  "April,"  and  so  on  throughout  the  year. 

13  Of  course  it  is  to  bo  remembered  that  the  Chronicler  brings  him  in  again  for  a 
moment,  in  very  characteristic  fashion,  in  the  story  of  Nehemiah,  a  dozen  years  later 
(12:36). 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  2G1 

cases,  in    all    parts    of    the    Chronicler's   narrative,    which    have 
already  been  mentioned. 

It  is  perhaps  hardly  necessary  to  reiterate,  that  in  all  this 
there  is  not  a  word  said  about  the  introduction  of  a  new 
law.  What  is  represented  is  everywhere  and  consistently  this, 
that  the  old  law,  of  whose  existence  the  leaders  of  the  people 
well  knew,  and  whose  main  prescriptions  they  were  of  course  fol- 
lowing all  the  time,  but  which  had  been  sadly  neglected,  so 
that  many  of  its  commands  were  quite  forgotten,  was  now  re- 
instated in  its  completeness  by  one  who  had  authority. 
This,  as  I  have  already  shown,  is  one  of  the  Chronicler's  favorite 
ideas,  to  which  he  returns  again  and  again,  in  his  history  of 
Israel.  See  above,  especially  pp.  237,  247.  More  than  this,  the 
picture  of  a  revival  of  the  law  immediately  followed,  as  a  result, 
by  a  formal  covenant  entered  into  by  the  people,  is  one  which 
he  delights  to  paint.  According  to  his  narrative  in  II  Chron. 
14:4,  the  Judean  king  Asa  restored  the  law.  It  had  been 
neglected  then  in  the  same  manner  as  in  the  time  of  Ezra;  the 
people  had  no  opportunity  to  read  it,  and  there  was  no  "expert 
scribe"  to  teach  it  to  them.  As  one  of  the  prophets  of  Asa's 
kingdom  said  (15:  3) :  "Now  for  a  long  season  Israel  hath  been 
without  the  true  God,  and  without  a  teaching  priest,  and  without 
law."  After  the  law  had  been  restored,  the  people  gathered 
together  at  Jerusalem  (vss.  10-13)  and  entered  into  a  covenant 
"to  seek  the  Lord,  ....  and  that  whosoever  would  not  seek 
the  Lord  should  be  put  to  death."  So  also  in  34:32,  after 
repeating  from  Kings  the  story  of  Josiah's  public  reading  of  the 
law,  and  of  the  covenant  which  the  king  made,  the  Chronicler 
adds:  "And  he  caused  all  who  were  found  in  Jerusalem  and 
Benjamin  to  stand  to  it.  And  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  did 
according  to  the  covenant  of  God."  In  like  manner  after  the 
first  reading  of  the  law  by  Ezra,  when  the  need  of  the  first  great 
reform  is  seen,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  people  says  (Ezr.  10:  3) : 
"Now  therefore  let  us  make  a  covenant  with  our  God,  to  put 
away  all  such  wives,"  etc.  And  then  finally,  after  still  another 
public  reading  and  expounding  of  the  law  (Neh.  9:  3),  the  peo- 
ple are  represeated  as  signing  and  sealing  a  more  comprehensive 
covenant,  embracing  those  things  which  were  commonly  neg- 
lected, and  yet  (in  the  mind  of  the  Chronicler)  were  of  the 
greatest  importance.     There  is  never  a  hint  of  such  a  thing  as 


262  EzKA  Studies 

accepting  a  new  law,  only  the  familiar  idea  of  renewing  an  old 
one  which  had  been  neglected." 

Before  leaving  the  story  of  Ezra,  the  question  deserves  to  be 
raised  once  more  whether  some  valuable  material,  however  small, 
for  the  history  of  the  Persian  period  may  not  be  found  in  it.  It 
is  the  Chronicler's  own  tale,  his  composition  from  beginning  to 
end,  that  is  certain ;  but  even  so,  every  witness  in  its  favor  must  be 
given  a  fair  hearing.  I  have  already  shown  with  suliBcient  detail 
of  proof,  that  the  whole  Ezra  narrative  is  motived  history,  com- 
posed with  the  very  same  purpose  which  produced  the  similar 
narratives  written  to  supplement  the  accounts  of  Samuel  and 
Kings;  and  that  there  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence  that  any  other 
story  of  Ezra,  written  or  oral,  lies  behind  this  one  (see  above, 
pp.  238,  242  f . ) .  The  only  question  that  can  arise  is  this, 
whether  the  Chronicler  has  not  used  events  or  names  of  persons 
which  can  legitimately  be  received  by  us  as  historical  material. 
But  the  answer  to  this  question,  the  only  answer  justified 
by  the  evidence,  is  an  unqualified  negative.  I  have  remarked 
elsewhere  upon  the  fact  that  the  Chronicler,  in  all  this  tale, 
recounts  no  events  at  all  except  such  as  serve  his  apologetic 
purpose.  What  is  told  of  the  Ezra  expedition  is  just  that  which 
was  narrated  of  the  former  "return"  in  Ezr,  1-3:  a  royal  edict; 
names  of  the  participants;  enumeration  of  vessels  for  the  temple; 
special  mention  (for  the  purpose  of  praise  or  blame)  of  certain  men 
or  groups  of  men ;  the  fact  that  the  several  classes  duly  occupied 
"their"  cities.  So  also  in  the  next  episode:  the  same  magnificent 
liberality,  and  told  in  the  same  words,  in  Neh.  7:70-72  as  in 
Ezr.  2:68  f.  and  I  Chron.  29:6  fp.  The  account  of  the  reading  of 
the  law  is  merely  repeated  from  the  Chronicler's  story  of  the  dedi- 
cation of  Solomon's  temple,  in  II  Chron.  5-7 ;  it  is  the  very  same 
scene,  with  the  same  principal  incidents  (for  details,  see  my  Comp., 
p.  59 ) .     All  the  ideas  found  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  Nehemiah,  and 

UBertholet,  Comm..,  pp.  75  f.,  argues  that  a  chapter  must  have  fallen  out  after  Neh.  9, 
namely  a  chapter  telling  how  the  people  formally  pledged  themselves  to  accept  "the  new 
law;"  Neh.  10,  he  insists,  cannot  be  the  continuation  of  cliap.  9,  because  in  the  covenant 
which  it  contains  nothing  is  said  about  adopting  any  new  code!  This  is  perfectly  typical 
of  the  whole  treatment  of  the  Ezra  narrative  which  prevails  at  present;  the  rule  every- 
where followed  appears  to  be  this:  Let  the  documents  go,  but  keep  tlio  present  "critical" 
theory  ;  never  this  rule:  Let  the  tlieory  go,  but  hold  to  the  documents.  No  part  of  the  Old 
Testament,  in  fact,  has  brought  forth  so  much  perverse  exegesis  as  this  tale  of  Ezra.  It 
will  doubtless  long  bo  customary  to  cite  it  as  the  account  of  "the  introduction  of  the 
Priest-code,"  though  this  view  of  it  has  not  the  least  foundation  of  any  sort.  The  narrative 
says  nothing  of  the  kind;  the  laws  quoted  and  accepted  in  the  story  do  not  belong,  as  a 
rule,  to  the  priestly  legislation  (read  Hoitholot,  loc.  cit.,  p.  76!) ;  and  finally,  as  I  have  said  else- 
where (pp.  196  f.),  tliere  is  neither  ovi<lonce  nor  likelihood  that  any  "Priest-code"  ever 
existed. 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  263 

most  of  the  phrases  in  which  they  are  couched,  are  commonplaces 
in  the  Chronicler's  history.  The  story  of  the  reform  in  the  matter 
of  foreign  wives  differs  only  in  the  nature  of  the  case  from  the 
stories  told  by  him  of  the  reforms  of  Asa,  Jehosha[)hat,  and 
Hezekiah.  The  manner  of  the  narrative  is  just  the  same,  and  the 
properties  and  personages  are  as  nearly  identical  as  they  can  be. 
The  details  introduced  by  way  of  embellishment  (Ezra's  violent 
manifestations  of  grief;  the  storms  of  rain;  the  stairs  on  which  the 
Levites  stood,  etc.)  are  like  the  similar  ones  found  in  every  part 
of  the  earlier  history,  devised  solely  with  the  purpose  of  giving 
life  to  the  story,  not  in  order  to  give  it  the  semblance  of  truth  — 
and  it  does  not,  indeed,  sound  in  the  least  like  truth.  And  tinally, 
the  account  of  the  signing  of  the  covenant  is,  as  I  have  just  shown, 
one  of  the  Chronicler's  specialties,  a  thing  which  he  brings  into 
his  history  over  and  over  again.  And  all  the  items  of  the  covenant 
are  those  which  he  reiterates  elsewhere,  in  about  the  same  words, 
in  such  chapters  as  II  Chron.  31  and  Neh.  13. 

In  all  this  there  is  not  a  word  which  sounds  like  popular  tra- 
dition, nor  a  single  incident  which  stands  outside  the  direct  line  of 
the  Chronicler's  tendency.  As  for  names  of  persons  and  places, 
what  appears  to  be  opulence  in  this  regard  is  really  the  extreme  of 
poverty.  We  have  only  the  same  old  threadbare  stufp,  names  of 
"the  chief  of  the  people,  the  priests,  and  the  Levites"  which  have 
been  paraded  in  every  chapter  of  the  book  since  the  time  of  Moses. 
"Ezra"  himself  is  the  personification  of  the  Chronicler's  interests, 
completely  identical  with  the  Nehemiah  of  Neh.  13  and  (mutatis 
mutandis)  with  each  of  the  long  list  of  ecclesiastical  heroes  and 
reformers  created  by  the  Chronicler  and  introduced  by  him  into 
his  history  of  the  Judean  kingdom.  It  is  a  most  significant  fact, 
among  others,  that  the  Chronicler  did  not  know  who  the  governor 
of  Judea  was  during  the  first  part  of  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  II. 
He  could  not  leave  him  out,  and  therefore  speaks  of  him  simply  as 
"the  Tirshatha"  in  Neh.  7:70,  8:9,  and  10:2  (see  the  note  on  the 
last-named  passage).'^     He  did  undertake  to  present,  asa  matter 

•5  It  appears  to  be  a  similar  instance  of  caution  when  he  employs  the  term,  without  the 
name,  in  Ezr.  2:6.3  and  Neh.  7:65.  The  reason  for  this  is  obvious.  The  Aramaic  tale,  incor- 
porated by  the  Chronicler,  says  expressly  (Ezr.  5:14)  that  Sheshbazzar  was  the  nPlD 
"governor"  of  the  Jews  at  the  time  wlien.tlie  foundation  of  the  temple  was  laid;  while 
the  same  document  (6:7)  gives  Zorubbabel  the  title  nnD  "governor."  In  the  face  of  these 
conflicting  statements,  there  was  only  one  prudent  course.  It  was  doubtless  from  the  same 
motive — caution — that  the  Chronicler  chose  the  unusual  term  SriTU^n  "Tirshatha."  Just 
as  soon  as  he  gets  back  to  firm  ground,  in  Neh.  12:26,  he  writes  "Nehemiah  the  gover- 
nor" (nnDH). 


264  Ezra  Studies 

of  course,  a  list  of  the  high-priests  during  the  Persian  period. 
Regarding  the  list,  which  contains  too  few  names,  and  gives  other 
evidence  of  being  artificially  created,  I  shall  have  more  to  say 
later.  It  is  uncertain  whether  he  intended  the  persons  named  in 
Ezr.  10:6,  "the  chamber  of  Jehohanan  the  son  of  Eliashib,"  to 
belong  to  the  high-priestly  line,  or  not  (cf.  Neh.  13:4);  if  that 
was  his  intention,  so  much  the  worse  for  his  chronology. 

Certain  words  of  Bernheim,  Die  historische  Methode\  p.  426, 
are  so  nearly  applicable  to  the  present  case  that  they  are  worth 
quoting.  He  writes:  "In  einer  eigenthumlichen  Lage  befindet 
sich  die  Kritik  manchen  Zeugnissen  gegentlber,  die,  einzig  in  ihrer 
Art,  durch  andere  Quellen  weder  positiv  noch  negativ  zu  kontrol- 
lieren  sind,  well  aus  derselben  Zeit,  bzw.  iiber  dieselben  Thatsachen 
gar  keine  anderen  Quellen  erhalten  sind,  wahrend  wir  obendrein 
wissen,  dass  die  Zeugnisse  nicht  durch weg  Zuverlassig  sind ;  .  .  .  . 
und  aus  einer  gewissen  Schwache  des  Gemilts  sind  wir  geneigt, 
obwohl  wir  nicht  reeht  trauen,  dieselben  gelten  zu  lassen,  solange 
wir  sie  nicht  kontroUieren  konnen,  well  wir  gar  keine  Kenntnis 
Tiber  die  betreffenden  Thatsachen  besitzen,  falls  wir  sie  aufgeben." 
In  one  respect,  indeed,  the  case  before  us  differs  slightly  from  the 
one  described  by  Bernheim,  in  that  the  documents  which  he  char- 
acterizes are  "not  altogether  trustworthy;"  while  in  the 
writings  of  the  Chronicler  we  have  the  work  of  an  author  who  is 
well  known  to  us  as  thoroughly  untrustworthy,  and,  what  is 
far  more  important,  as  one  who  composes  history  with  a  motive 
which  is  obviously,  furthered  by  this  very  narrative. 
That  being  the  case,  it  is  plain  that  no  use  whatever  can  be  made 
of  any  part  of  the  Ezra  story  as  a  source  for  the  history  of  the 
Jews  in  the  Persian  period.  The  same  is  of  course  true  of  Neh. 
7:1-69  and  chaps.  11-13,  with  the  solitary  exception  of  the  list 
of  high-priests  in  12:10f.,  22,  where  we  are  able  partially  to 
control  the  Chronicler's  statements  by  the  help  of  other  sources. 

The  translation  which  here  follows  is  based  on  an  emended 
text,  the  reason  for  the  emendation  being  given  in  each  case. 
Our  massoretic  text  is  in  the  main  excellent,  standing  probably 
very  close  to  what  the  Chronicler  himself  wrote.  The  other  texts 
(rendered  by  I  Esdras,  Theodotion,  and  Jerome)  are  inferior. 
I  have  omitted  the  lists  of  names  and  the  long  prayer  in  Neh.  9, 
as  not  essential  to  my  present  purpose,  which  is  to  print  the 
narrative  as  it  originally  stood. 


The  Ezra  Story-  in  Its  Original  Sequence  265 

THE  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  EXPEDITION'' 

(Ezr.  8 : 1-H6 ;  Neh.  7 :  70-73a ) 

Ezr.  8'  And  these  are  the  chief  of  the  fathers,''  and  their 
genealogy,  those  who  went  up  with  me  from  Babylonia  "=  in  the 
reigfn  of  Artaxerxes  the  king.  ^Of  the  sons  of  Phinehas,  Ger- 
shom,  ....  etc.  {Then  follows,  in   vss.  2-14,   the    list, 

composed  in  the  Chrouicler''s  characteristic  manner.)  ^'"I 

assembled  them  at  the  river  which  flows  into  the  Ahava,'^  and 
there  we  encamped  for  three  days.  And  I  took  account  of  the 
people,'  and  of  the  priests,  but  of  the  sons  of  Levi  I  found  none 
there.  ^^So  I  sent  Eliezer,  Ariel,  Shemaiah,  Elnathan,  Jarib,* 
Nathan,  Zachariah,  and  Meshullam,  chief  men;  and  Joiarib  and 
Elnathan,  men  of  discernment;  ''directing  them  to  Iddo,  who 
was  the  chief  in  the  place  Casiphia.  And  I  instructed  them 
what  to  say  to  Iddo  my  brother,^  and  to  the  Nethinim  in  the 
place  Casiphia,  to  bring  ns  servants  for  the  house  of  our  God. 
'^And  by  the  good  hand  of  our  God  upon  us  they  brought  us  a 
man  of  understanding,  of  the  sons  of  Mahli,  son  of  Levi,  son  of 
Israel;  even*'  Sherebiah,  with  his  sons  and  his  brethren,  eighteen; 
'^Also  Hashabiah  and'  Jeshaiah,  of  the  sons  of  Merari,  with  their 
brethren'  and    their  children,  twenty.     ^"And  of    the  Nethinim, 

*For  a  translation  of  the  narrative  immediately  preceding,  see  above, 
pp.  205-7. 

^Cf.  Ezr.  1:5,  and  especially  1  Esdr.  5:4.  See  the  texts  and  annotations 
given  above,  pp.  120-35. 

''"  Babylonia,"  not  "Babylon;"  cf.  my  notes,  above,  on  II  Chron.  36:20, 
Ezr.  5:12,  6:1. 

•*The  name  is  known  only  from  this  chapter,  and  the  translation  is 
accordingly  uncertain. 

•^The  Chronicler  has  no  fixed  order  of  mentioning  these  three  classes: 
"people  (or,  'Israel'),  priests,  Levites."  The  order  found  here  occurs  very 
frequently;  thus  I  Chron.  9:2,  23:2,  II  Chron.  17:7  f.  (contrast  19:8),  34:30, 
35: 8  f.,  Ezr.  1:5,  I  Esdr.  4:53ff.,  Ezr.  2:2fF.,  6:16,  7:7,  13,  9:1,  Neh.  8:13, 
10:28, 11: 3.     See  also  above,  p.  2.38,  note. 

'The  "Elnathan"  which  follows  this  name  in  MT  is  due  to  the  error  of  a 
copyist  whose  eye  strayed  to  the  same  pair  of  names  just  one  line 
below.  Our  text  is  otherwise  correct.  Cf.  with  this  vs.  II  Chron.  17: 7!  The 
Chronicler's  style  is  not  like  that  of  any  one  else. 

elt  is  obvious  that  n"^3^n:n  VnX  must  be  divided  Dimim  ^nS  . 

•"The  occasional  use  of  an  "explicative  icaiv"  in  both  the  Hebrew  and 
the  Aramaic  of  the  Greek  period  is  well  attested.  Cf.  my  notes,  above,  on 
I  Esdr.  3:1,  6,  Ezr.  6:8,  9;  further,  I  Chron.  28:1,  Neh.  8:13,  9:16,  10:29. 
Theodotion's  Hebrew  had  here  VZ^  1X3  T!Jm,  instead  of  T2y\  n^llTDI. 

'Reading  nSI  and  nn^nS . 


266  Ezra  Studies 

whom  David  and  the  princes  gave  for  the  service  of  the  Levites: 
two  hundred  and  twenty  Nethinim,  all  registered  by  name. 

^'And  I  proclaimed  a  fast  there,  at  the  river  Ahava,  that  we 
might  humble  ourselves  before  our  God,  to  seek  from  him  a 
prosperous  journey,  for  ourselves,  our  little  ones,  and  all  our 
goods.  '■^"For  I  had  been  ashamed  to  ask  of  the  king  an  armed 
and  mounted  guard,  to  protect  us  from  enemies  on  the  way; 
because  we  had  said  to  the  king:  The  hand  of  our  God  is  upon 
all  those  who  seek  him,  for  good;  but  his  power  and  his  wrath 
are  against  all  who  forsake  him.  **So  we  fasted,  and  besought 
our  God  for  this,  and  he  accepted  our  prayer. 

^*And  I  set  apart  twelve  men  of  the  chief  priests,  .... 
Sherebiah  and  Hashabiah  and  ten  of  their  brethren.''  ^'And  I 
weighed  out  for  them  the  silver,  and  the  gold,  and  the  vessels; 
the  offering  for  the  house  of  our  God  which  the  king,  and  his 
counselors  and  princes,  and  all  Israel  there  present  had  offered. 
^•^I  weighed  into  their  hand  six  hundred  and  lifty  talents  of 
silver,  and  one  hundred  silver  vessels  worth  ....  talents;'  one 
hundred  talents  of  gold;  ''twenty  bowls  of  gold  worth  a  thousand 
darics;™  and  twelve  vessels  of  fine  polished  bronze,"  precious  as 
gold.  ■^'^And  I  said  to  them:°  Ye  are  holy  unto  Yahw6,  and  the 
vessels  are  holy,  and  the  silver  and  the  gold  are  a  freewill  offering 
to  Yahw6  the  God  of  your  fathers.  ''"Watch  and  keep  them, 
until  ye  weigh  them  out  before  the  chief  priests  and  Levites  and 
the  chief  of  the  fathers  of  Israel,  in  Jerusalem,  inP  the  chambers 
of  the  house  of  Yahw6.  ^"So  the  priests  and  the  Levites  received 
the  weight  of  the  silver  and  the  gold,  and  the  vessels,  to  bring 
them  to  Jerusalem  to  the  house  of  our  God. 

''Probably  something  has  fallen  out  after  the  numeral  "twelve,"  either 
the  single  word  D^lbnTai  or  else  a  longer  passage.  We  should  expect  twelve 
priests  and  twelve  Levites,  cf.  vss.  30  and  33.  The  5  before  "Sherebiah" 
was  pretty  certainly  written  by  the  Chronicler  himself. 

'The  numeral  seems  to  have  fallen  out;  it  must  have  stood  just  after  the 
word  "talents." 

"■The  word  "jIDIlJ?,  derived  from  5apei/c6s,  originated  in  tlie  Greek  period 
and  was  formed  after  the  analogy  of  "iTaDm,  "drachma."  The 
Chronicler  uses  it  also  in  I  Chron.  29:7. 

"The  numeral  here  was  originally  "1TU7  D'^DTU,  as  I  Esdr.  8:56  (S^/ca  bvo) 
shows.  See  also  Josephus,  Antt.  xi,  136.  fTCnS  is  construct  state,  and 
Dn213  (a  noun,  of  course,  with  collective  meaning)  is  probably  corre -t. 

°Cf.  I  Chron.  15: 12,  II  Chron.  29:5,  35:3-6.    Very  characteristic. 

p  The  text  is  slightly  corrupt. 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  267 

^Mnd  we  set  out  from  the  river  Ahava  on  the  twelfth''  day  of  April  12 
the  tirst  month,  to  go  to  Jerusalem.      And  the  hand  of  our  God 
was  upon  us,  and  he  delivered  us  from  the  power  of  the  enemy 
and  the  lier-in-wait,  on  the  way,     *'So  we  came  to  Jerusalem, 
and  there  we  abode  for  three  days.     ^^And  on  the  fourth  day  the   August  1 
silver,  the  gold,  and  the  vessels  were  weighed  in  the  house  of  our  (See  7:8f.) 
God,   under   the   direction   of    Meremoth  the  son  of    Uriah,  the 
priest,  with   whom  was  Eleazar  the  son  of  Phinehas;    and  with 
them  were  Jozabad  the  son  of  Jeshua  and  Noadiah  the  son  of 
Binnui,  the  Levites.     ^^(They  received)  the  whole  by  number  and 
by  weight,''  and  all  of  the  weight  was  written  down  at  that  time. 

^'The  children  of  the  exile,  those  who  had  just  come  from  the 
captivity,  offered  whole  burnt  offerings  to  the  God  of  Israel :  twelve 
bullocks  for  all  Israel,  ninety-six  rams,  seventy-seven  lambs,  and 
twelve  he-goats  for  a  sin  offering ;  all  this  as  a  whole  burnt  offering 
to  Yahw6.  ^"And  they  delivered  the  orders  of  the  king  to  his 
satraps  and  the  governors  of  the  province  Beyond  the  River  ;^  these 
accordingly  aided  the  people  and  the  house  of  God.  Neh.  7  '"And 
some  of  the  chief  of  the  fathers  made  donations  to  the  work.  The 
Tirshatha'  gave  into  the  treasury  a  thousand  drachmas"  in  gold, 
fifty  basins,  thirty  priests'  garments,  and  five  hundred  [minas  of 
silver  ] ."  ' ^  And  some  of  the  chief  of  the  fathers  gave  to  the  treasury 
of  the  work""'  twenty  thousand  drachmas  of  gold,  and  two  thousand 
and  two  hundred  minas  of  silver.  '"And  that  which  the  rest  of 
the  people  gave  was  twenty  thousand  drachmas  of  gold,  two 
thousand  minas  of  silver,  and  sixty-seven  priests'  garments. 

""And  the  priests,  the  Levites,  the  porters,  and  the  singers, 
some  of  the  people,  and  the  Nethinim,  even  all  Israel,  dwelt  in 
their  cities." 

iThe  Chronicler's  favorite  number,  again,  for  this  most  important  date. 

'Tiie  sanie  peculiar  construction,  and  the  same  words,  in  I  Chron.  28:14ff. 

'  Concerning  these  officers,  see  above,  pp.  125,  174  f. 

'  Ihat  is,  the  governor  of  Judea.  The  Chronicler  employs  the  title  in 
Ezr.  2:fi3,  Neh.  7:G5,  8:9,  and  (probably)  10:2;  in  these  passages,  also,  as  a  non- 
committal designation,  the  name  not  being  given.  "Nehemiah"  in  8:9  and 
10:2  is  an  interpolation;  see  the  notes  on  the  two  passages. 

"Observe  the  Greek  word. 

^It  is  probable,  as  many  have  observed,  that  the  words  'S^j'C  "03  origi- 
nally stood  between  1  and  TC'Cn. 

"'With  this  whole  passage  cf.  I  Chron.  29:6ff.  (obviously  the  work  of  the 
same  hand!),  II  Chron.  29:.31  ff.,  .^5:7  ff. 

"Cf.  I  Chron.  9:2  and  Ezr,  2:1  (end)!  Our  text  of  the  verse  is  probably 
just  what  the  Chronicler  wrote. 


268  Ezra  Studies 

THE  READING  OF  THE  LAW 

(Neh,  7:73?^— 8:18) 

7'^''And  when  the  seventh  month  was  come,  the  children  of 
Israel  being  in  their  cities/  8 'all  the  people  assembled  as  one 
man  at  the  open  place  before  the  water  gate;^  and  they  sent  word 
to  Ezra  the  scribe  to  bring  the  book  of  the  Law  of  Moses,  which 
Yahw6  had  commanded  to  Israel.  ^So  Ezra  the  priest  brought 
the  law  before  the  congregation,  both  men  and  women,  and  all  that 
could  hear  with  understanding,  on  the  first  day  of  the  seventh 
month.  ^And  he  read  in  it,  over  against  the  open  place  before  the 
water  gate,  from  early  morning  until  midday,  before  the  men  and 
women  and  all  who  could  understand;  and  the  ears  of  all  the 
people  were  attentive  to  the  book  of  the  law.  *And  Ezra  the 
scribe  stood  upon  a  pulpit  of  wood"^  which  had  been  made  for  the 
purpose;  and  there  stood  beside  him  Mattathiah,  Shema,  Anaiah, 
L^riah,  Hilkiah,  and  Maaseiah,  on  his  right  hand;  and  at  his  left 
hand  Pedaiah,  Mishael,  Malchijah,  Hashum,  Hashbaddanah,  and 
Zechariah.^  ^And  Ezra  opened  the  book  in  the  sight  of  all  the 
people  (for  he  was  above  the  people),  and  as  he  opened  it  they  all 
stood  up.  "^Then  Ezra  blessed  Yahw6,  the  great  God;  and  all  the 
people  answered.  Amen,  amen,  lifting  up  their  hands,  and  they 
bowed  down  and  worshiped  Yahw6  with  their  faces  to  the  ground. 
'Moreover  Jeshua,  Bani,  Sherebiah,  Jamin,  Akkub,  Shabbethai, 
Hodiah,  Maaseiah,  Kelita,  Azariah,  Jozabad,  Hanan,  and  Pelaiah, 
the  Levites,*^  instructed  the  people  in  the  law,  while  all  remained 
in  their  places.  ^And  they  read  in  the  book  of  the  law  distinctly,'* 
and  gave  the  sense,  so  that  the  reading  was  understood. 

y Compare  I  Chron.  13:2,  which  is  an  instructive  parallel. 

^See  above,  pp.  23-1,  247;  and  compare  also  II  Chron.  5:3,  29:4. 

■■'Cf.  the  brazen  pulpit  used  by  Solomon  on  a  similar  occasion,  II  Chron. 
6:13  (not  in  Kings).  Just  as  Neh.  7:70-72  is  repeated  from  I  Chron.  29:6-8, 
so  the  whole  scene  in  Neh.  8  is,  in  its  main  feature.s,  a  repetition  of  the  one 
pictured  in  II  Chron.,  chaps.  5-7.     See  my  Comjjosition,  p.  59. 

'^'Neither  Greek  version  gives  "Meehullam,"  and  it  obviously  originated 
in  a  marginal  variant  of  b'lyiSli  or  bXTtJTp.  These  fwe?t»e  names  are  intended 
as  those  of  laymen;  cf.  10:15-28,  and  Ezr.  10:25-43. 

"^  Omit  ^ .  The  number  of  these  names  was  probably  tioelve  originally,  but 
there  is  no  good  ground  for  emending  the  te.xt.  In  Theodotion's  original,  the 
resemblance  of  "j'^'Qi  to  D"'3''(3^)  had  caused  the  accidental  omission  of 
eleven  words. 

■J The  usage  elsewhere,  and  the  evident  intent  of  the  grammatical  con- 
nection here,  combine  to  render  this  meaning  certain. 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  269 

"And  the  Tirsliatha,'=  and  Ezra  the  priest  the  scribe,  and  the 
Levites  who  taught  the  people,  said  to  all  the  people:  This  day  is 
holy  unto  Yahw6  your  God;  mourn  not,  nor  weep.  For  all  the 
people  wept,  when  they  heard  the  words  of  the  law.  '"They''  also 
said  to  them:  Go,  eat  the  fat  and  drink  the  sweet,  and  send  por- 
tions to  him  that  hath  no  provision ;  for  this  day  is  holy  unto  our 
Lord.  And  be  ye  not  distressed;  for  the  joy  of  Yahw6  is  your 
strength.  "And  the  Levites  quieted  all  the  people,  saying:  Be 
still,  for  the  day  is  holy;  neither  be  ye  distressed.  ^^So  all  the 
people  went  away,  to  eat  and  drink,  and  to  send  portions,  and  to 
make  great  rejoicing,  for  they  gave  heed  to  the  things  which  had 
been  told  them. 

'^Then  were  assembled  |^  on  the  following  day  the  chief  of  the  October  2 
fathers  of  all  the  people,  the  priests,  and  the  Levites,  unto  Ezra 
the  scribe,  even  that  they  might  give  attention  to  the  words  of  the 
law,  "And  they  found  written  in  the  law,  that  Yahw6  had  given 
command,  through  Moses,  that  the  children  of  Israel  should  dwell 
in  booths  during  the  festival  of  the  seventh  month;  ''^and  that 
they  should  proclaim^  and  publish  in  all  their  cities  and  in  Jeru- 
salem, saying:  Go  forth  to  the  mountain,  and  bring  olive  branches, 
and  branches  of  wild  olive,  also  of  the  myrtle,  and  the  palm,  and 
other  leafy  trees,  in  order  to  make  booths  according  to  the  pre- 
scription. "'So  the  people  went  forth,  and  brought  them;  and  they 
made  for  themselves  booths,  upon  their  own  roofs,  and  in  their 
courts,  and  in  the  courts  of  the  house  of  God;  also  in  the  open 
places  before  the  water  gate  and  the  gate  of  Ephraim.  '^And  all 
the  congregation,  those  who  had  returned  from  the  captivity,' 
made  booths  and  dwelt  in  them ;  for  the  children  of  Israel  had  not 
done  thus  from   the  days  of  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun  unto  that 

•^The  words  SIH  n"''52n;  are  a  later  addition,  as  the  old  Greek  version 
shovvB.  See  the  note  on  7:70.  Theodotion's  original  had  simply  substituted 
the  name  "Nehemiah,"  both  here  and  in  10:2. 

^Third  pers.  sing,  for  indefinite  subject,  as  very  often  elsewhere.  So 
also  vs.  18. 

^Here  ends  the  fragment  originally  plucked  from  the  middle  of  the  old 
Greek  translation,  and  known  to  us  as  "First  Esdras."     See  above,  p.  36. 

''A  good  exnmple  of  the  Chronicler's  careless  way  of  narrating  (cf.  above, 
pp.  158  f.).  What  here  follows  ip,  of  course,  not  what  they  found  in  the  law, 
but  what  Ezra  said  to  those  who  had  come  to  him.  (It  is  possible,  to  be  sure, 
that  the  original  text  had  ITrS  I'aX"'"!  in  place  of  nirSI.) 

iCf.  Ezr.  6:21.  8:.%. 


270  Ezra  Studies 

day.''     And  there  was  very  great  rejoicing.     '^And  they  read  in 
the  book  of  the  law  of  God  day  by  day,  from  the  first  day  unto 
October  22  the  last.     So  they  observed  the  feast  seven  days,  and  on  the  eighth 
day  was  a  festal  assembly,  according  to  the  ordinance. 

THE  EXPULSION  OF  THE  GENTILE  WIVES 

(Ezr.  9:1—10:44) 

Ezr.  9  'Now  when  these  things  were  finished,  the  chief  men 
ivember(?)  drew  near  to  me,  saying:  The  people  of  Israel,  the  priests,  and 
the  Levites,  have  not  separated  themselves  from  the  peoples  of  the 
land,  with'  all  their  abominations,  namely  the  Canaanites,  Hittites, 
Perizzites,  Jebusites,  Ammonites,  Moabites,  Egyptians,  and 
Amorites.  "For  they  have  taken  of  their  daughters,  for  them- 
selves and  for  their  sons,  and  thus  the  holy  race  hath  been  mixed" 
with  the  peoples  of  the  land.  Moreover,  the  hand  of  the  chief  men 
and  the  rulers  hath  been  foremost  in  this  trespass.  ''When  I 

heard  this  thing,  I  rent  my  garment  and  my  cloak,  and  plucked  out 
some  of  the  hair  of  my  head  and  of  my  beard,  and  sat  as  though 
stunned.  *Then  were  assembled  unto  me  all  those  that  trembled 
at  the  words  of  the  God  of  Israel,  because  of  the  trespass  of  the 
men  of  the  exile ;  but  I  continued  sitting  as  though  stunned,  until 
the  evening  offering.  "And  at  the  time  of  the  evening  offering 
I  arose  from  my  humiliation,  even  with  my  garment  and  my  cloak 
rent;  and  I  fell  upon  my  knees,  and  spread  out  my  hands  unto 
Yahw6  my  God."     ''And  I  said:   O  my  God,  I  am  confounded  and 

•'Meaning,  of  course,  that  the  festival  had  not  before  been  observed  so 
universally  and  completely,  since  the  time  of  Joshua.  The  state- 
ment is  merely  a  parallel  to  the  one  found  in  II  Chion.  3):  18.  The  Chronicler 
hail  several  times,  in  the  earlier  history,  mentioned  the  celebration  of  this 
festival,  and  with  emphasis.  See  not  only  Ezr.  3:4,  but  especially  II  Chron. 
7:8ff.,  8:1.'{,  in  both  of  which  passages  he  has  deliberately 
altered  the  text  of  Kings.  He  could  not  possibly  have  put  into  his 
book,  here  in  the  Ezra  story,  a  flat  contradiction  of  the  statement  which  he 
had  previously  made  with  so  evidently  studied  purpose. 

'  I  believe  that  the  reading  of  our  text  (with  D )  is  correct.  This  is  prob- 
ably one  of  the  Chronicler's  ellipses. 

">Cf.  Ps.  106:35,  and  especially  Neh.  9:2,  13:3.  (In  the  last-named  pas- 
sage Meyer,  Entstehung,  p.  130,  would  emend  to  "Arabs"!) 

"Cf.  II  Chron.  6:13.  This  part  of  the  Ezra  story  is  written  in  the 
Chronicler's  liveliest  style  — not,  however,  a  whit  more  lively  than  10:1-14, 
where  the  story  is  told  of  Ezra  in  the  third  person.  See  above,  pp.  234,  246  f. 
The  prayer  which  follows  is  also  thoroughly  characteristic. 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  271 

ashamed  to  lift  up°  my  face  unto  thee ;  for  our  sins  have  multiplied 
exceedingly ,P  and  our  guilt  hath  mounted  high  as  the  heavens. 
'Since  the  days  of  our  fathers  we  have  been  exceeding  guilty,  unto 
this  day;  and  for  our  sins,  we,  our  kings,  and  our  priests,  have 
been  given  into  the  power  of  the  kings  of  the  lands,  for  slaughter, 
for  captivity,  for  plundering,  and  for  humiliation,  as  at  this  day. 
*But  now  for  a  moment  grace  hath  been  given  from  Yahw6  our 
God,  to  save  for  us  a  remnant,  and  to  give  us  a  secure  fastening 
in  his  holy  place;  that  our  God  may  restore  the  light  to  our  eyes, 
and  grant  us  a  little  reviving  in  our  bondage.  "For  bondservants 
we  are;i  yet  in  our  bondage  our  God  hath  not  forsaken  us,  but 
hath  extended  to  us  favor  in  the  sight  of  the  kings  of  Persia,  to 
grant  us  a  reviving,  to  raise  up  the  house  of  our  God,  and  to  repair 
its  ruins,  and  to  give  us  a  wall  of  protection""  in  Judea  and  Jeru- 
salem. ^"Now  therefore,  O  our  God,  what  shall  we  say  after  this? 
for  we  have  forsaken  thy  commandments,  "which  thou  didst  com- 
mand by  thy  servants  the  prophets,  saying:^  The  land  which  ye 
are  entering,  to  possess  it,  is  a  land  foul  with  the  filth  of  the 
heathen  peoples,  with  their  abominations,  since  they  have  filled  it 
from  end  to  end  with  their  uncleanness.  ''Now  therefore  give 
not  your  daughters  to  their  sons,  nor  take  for  your  sons  their 
daughters,  nor  seek  their  peace  or  their  welfare,  for  ever;*  that 
ye  may  be  strong,  and  eat  the  good  of  the  land,  and  make  it  the 
perpetual  inheritance  of  your  children."  '^And  after  all  that  hath 
come  upon  us  for  our  evil  deeds,  and  for  our  great  guilt, — and  yet 
thou,  O  our  God,  hast  spared  us,  punishing^  less  than  our  sins 
deserve,  and  hast  given  us  such  a  remnant  as  this, — '*shall  we 
again  break  thy  commandments,  and  intermarry  with  the  people  of 

°With  the  peculiar  interjection  of  "^nbx  at  this  point,  cf.  the  similar  case 
in  I  Chron.  29:17. 

p The  impossible   TDi?'!  is  merely  dittography  of  the  following  TTXI . 

iCf.  especially  Neh.  9:36. 

"^This  is  of  course  figurative! 

-The  manner  of  the  following  quotation,  given  as  from  "the  Prophets" 
(by  which  word  he  means  primarily  Moses)  and  not  truly  representing  any 
single  passage,  is  exactly  what  we  have  already  noticed  in  II  Chron.  .36:21 
(see  the  note  above,  p.  120).  The  Chronicler  quotes  as  he  writes  —  carelessly 
and  irresponsibly. 

•  All  this  is  a  most  instructive  example  of  m  i  s  (i  u  o  t  a  t  i  o  n  ! 

"Cf.  I  Chron.  28:8  (not  in  Sam.-Kings). 

^The  Hebrew  contains  one  of  the  Chronicler's  ellipses. 


272  Ezra  Studies 

these  abominations?  Wouldest  thou  not  be  angry  with  us  to  the 
point  of  cutting  us  ofp  without  residue  or  remnant?  '^O  Yahw6, 
God  of  Israel,  thou  dealest  righteously,  that  we  are  left  a  remnant 
as  at  this  day  ;  behold  we  are  before  thee  in  our  guilt,  for  none  can 
stand  before  thee  because  of  this. 

10'  Now  while  Ezra"^  prayed  and  made  confession,  weeping 
and  prostrating  himself  before  the  house  of  God,  there  were 
assembled  unto  him  a  very  great  congregation  of  the  people  of 
Israel,  men,  women,  and  children;  moreover  the  people  wept 
exceedingly.  '^Then  Shechaniah  the  son  of  Jehiel,  of  the  sons  of 
Elam,  said  to  Ezra:  We  have  trespassed  against  our  God,  and 
have  married  foreign  women  of  the  peoples  of  the  land;  yet  even 
now  there  is  hope  for  Israel,  in  spite  of  this.  ''Now  therefore 
let  us  make  a  covenant  with  our  God,  to  put  away  all  such  wives," 
and  the  children  born  of  them,  according  to  the  counsel  of  my 
lord  and  of  those  who  tremble  at  the  commandment  of  our  God;^ 
and  let  obedience  be  given  to  the  law.""  *Arise,  for  the  matter 
resteth  upon  thee,  and  we  are  with  thee;  stand  firm,  and  do  it. 
^So  Ezra  arose,  and  made  the  chief  men  of  the  priests,  of  the 
Levites,  and  of  all  Israel,  swear  that  they  would  do  according  to 
this  word.      So  they  took  oath. 

^Then  Ezra  withdrew  from  before  the  house  of  God,  and  went 
to  the  chamber  of  Jehohanan  the  son  of  Eliashib,^  and  there  he 
passed  the  night  ;^  he  ate  no  bread,  nor  drank  water,  for  he  was 
mourning  because  of  the  trespass  of  the  men  of  the  exile.  'And 
they  made  proclamation  throughout  Judea  and  Jerusalem,  to  all 
those  of  the  exile,  that  they  should  assemble  at  Jerusalem;  ^and 

'''The  reason  for  the  use  of  the  third  person  in  this  chapter  is  simply  this, 
that  when  the  Chronicler  sat  down  to  write  it  he  did  not  happen  to  identify 
himself,  in  imagination,  with  his  hero.  On  the  next  occasion,  in  another 
mood,  he  might  write  in  the  first  person;  he  was  under  no  obligation  to  write 
always  in  the  same  way.     See  the  remarks  above,  pp.  244  f. 

"The  qualifying  "such"  is  of  course  understood  from  the  context.  The 
article  is  omitted  just  as  in  1:11  (see  my  note,  p.  124)  and  in  vs.  17  of  this 
chapter. 

y  That  is:  after  my  lord  (Ezra)  shall  have  consulted  with  the  more  devout 
of  the  leaders  of  Israel.     See  vs.  5. 

^Namely,  the  law  which  had  Just  been  read,  and  from  which  the  ''chief 
men"  (cf.  9:1  with  Neh.  8:1.3)  had  learned  of  the  prohibition  of  foreign  mar- 
riages.   See  the  introductory  remarks,  above. 

*See  the  introductory  remarks  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter. 

''Reading  'i^'^^  instead  of  ibi"!. 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  273 

that  whoever  did  not  come  within  three  specified  •=  days,  accord- 
ing to  the  counsel  of  the  chief  men  and  the  elders,  all  his  property 
should  be  forfeited,  and  he  himself  separated  from  the  congrega- 
tion of  the  exile. 

"Then  all  the  men  of  Judah  and  Benjamin  assembled  at  Jeru- 
salem within  the  three  days;  it  was'*  the  ninth  month,  on  the 
twentieth  day  of  the  month.  And  all  the  people  sat  in  the  open  December  2 
place  before  the  house  of  God,  trembling  because  of  this  matter, 
and  because  of  the  storms  of  rain.  '"Then  Ezra  the  priest  arose, 
and  said  to  them:  Ye  have  trespassed,  and  have  married  foreign 
women,  adding  this  to  the  guilt  of  Israel.  "Now  therefore  make 
confession  to  Yahw6,  the  God  of  your  fathers,  and  do  his  will;  and 
separate  yourselves  from  the  peoples  of  the  land,  and  from  the 
foreign  wives.  '^Then  all  the  congregation  answered  and  said 
with  a  loud  voice:  Thus,  according  to  thy  w^ord,  it  is  our  duty  to 
do.  '^But  the  people  are  many,  and  this  is  a  time  of  heavy  rains, 
so  that  we  cannot  remain  out  of  doors.  Moreover  it  is  not  a  work 
of  one  day,  nor  of  two;  for  very  many  of  us  have  sinned  in  this 
manner.  '*Let  our  chief  men  (that  is,  of  all  the  congregation)^ 
be  stationed  here,  and  let  all  those  in  our  cities  who  have  taken 
foreign  wives  come  to  them  at  stated  times,  and  with  them  the 
elders  and  judges '^  of  their  several  cities;  to  the  end  that  we  may 
turn  back  from  us  the  wrath  of  our  God  because  of^  this  thing. 
('"Nevertheless  Jonathan  the  son  of  Asahel  and  Jahzeiah  the  son 
of  Tikwah  stood  against  this  counsel,  and  Meshullam  and  Shab- 
bethai  the  Levite  seconded  them.)*'  "*And  the  people  of  the 

exile  did  so.      Ezra  the  priest  and'  certain  chief  men  according  to 

<=If  the  definite  article  is  original  here  (□"''Q'^n),  this  must  be  its  meaning. 
That  is,  three  days  were  appointed  during  which  the  men  were  to  present 
themselves  at  Jerusalem  for  registration. 

<i  Nothing  is  missing  here!  Cf.  7: 8  and  6: 15,  and  see  my  note  (p.  195,  note  c) 
on  the  latter  passage.    This  is  a  common  and  thoroughly  Semitic  construction. 

«Cf.  Xeh.  9:32,  II  Chron.  23:4,  28:15,  etc.  The  b  e.xplaining  the  suffix, 
as  so  often  in  Arabic. 

fCf.  II  Chron.  15:3,  19:5,  Ezra  7:10,  25  f.,  and  see  aViove,  p.  237. 

eRead  "ia~n  by.  with  Jerome,  Theodotion  (cf.  vs.  9),  and,  almost  cer- 
tainly, i  he  old  Greek  version  (the  vepi  of  the  L  text,  I  Esdr.  9:13,  is  presumably 
derived  from  Theodotion.  however). 

•■The  Chronicler's  imagination  delighted  in  creating  such  incidents,  as  I 
have  already  shown  with  abundant  illustration.  Cf.  also  II  Chron.  30:10  f., 
18,  I  Chron.  21:6,  Neh.  7 :61-G5,  as  well  as  such  passages  as  II  Chron.  28: 12,  etc. 

'  Read  D"^Tr:S1 .  with  Theodotion  and  Jerome.  The  old  Greek  ( =  ib  b'^n'^]) 
also  gives  sure  evidence  that  the  original  verb  was  lb~3"^i ,  for  ib  is  impos- 


274  Ezra  Studies 

their  families,  all  designated  by  name,  were  set  apart;  and  they 
January  1   were  in  session  on  the  first  day  of  the  tenth  month  to  examine 
the  matter.     "And  they  finished  with  all  the  men''  who  had  mar- 
April  1  ried  foreign  women  by  the  first  day  of  the  first  month. 

'^And  there  were  found  among  the  sons  of  the  priests,  who  had 
married  foreign  women:  of  the  sons  of  Jeshua  the  son  of  Jozadak, 
and  his  brethren;'  Maaseiah,  Eliezer,  Jarib,  and  Gedaliah. 
'^They  gave  their  pledge  that  they  would  put  away  their  wives; 
and  for  their  trespass  they  were  fined™  a  ram  of  the  flock.  ^"And 
of  the  sons  of  Immer;    Hanani  and  Zebediah.  [Then  follows, 

in  vss.  21-43,  the  remainder  of  the  list.)  "All   these   had 

taken  foreign  wives;  and  they  sent  them  back  (to  their  people), 
both  wives  and  children." 

THE  COVENANT  AGAINST   GENTILE  MARRIAGES  AND   IN 
SUPPORT  OF  THE  CLERGY 

(Neh.  9:1— 10:40) 

April  21  Neh.  9  ^Now  on  the  twenty-fourth  °  day  of  this  month  the 
children  of  Israel  assembled,  fasting,  and  in  sackcloth,  and  with 
earth  upon  their  heads.  ^And  the  seed  of  Israel  separated  them- 
selves from  all  foreigners  ;p  and  they  took  their  places,  and  con- 
fessed their  sins  and  the  iniquities  of  their  fathers.  ^And  they 
stood  up  in  their  places,  and  read  in  the  book  of  the  law  of  Yahw6 

sible  here.  This  latter  blunder  ultimately  produced  the  text  of  which  the 
translation  (presumably  by  Aquila  or  Symmachus)  has  in  this  verse  supplanted 
the  rendering  of  Theodotion  in  the  bizarre  L  recension. 

''Read  D'^TIJIX  ^?3.  The  Chronicler  omits  the  article  here  exactly  as  he 
does  in  vs.  3  and  in  1:1;  see  the  notes  on  these  passages. 

'See  Note  A,  at  the  end  of  the  chapter. 

■"□TpS  ,  like  the  Syriac  ■  q  > .- ,  may  take  a  direct  object.  On  the  elliptical 
clause  (very  characteristic)  see  p.  197,  note  k. 

"The  original  was  D"^jZ1^  D"'Pp  □^^'''IJJ^'I .  By  an  easy  accident,  the  two 
letters  13  were  dropped  from  the  first  word.  The  resulting  D"'T13'''i ,  which 
was  absolutely  impossible,  naturally  produced  the  variant,  UI^'Q  tS'^^^ .  In 
our  MT  both  of  these  readings  are  ingeniously  used;  the  latter  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  clause,  and  the  former,  'a"^TU"'1 ,  inserted  before  D-HI .  (For  a 
similar  case  of  ingenuity  in  combining  two  variant  Greek  readings,  see  the  L 
text  of  Neh.  1.3:20.)  The  old  Greek  version,  I  Esdr.  9:36,  renders  the  Hebrew 
which  I  have  conjectured.  See  further,  on  the  restorati(m  of  this  verse.  Note 
A,  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 

"Observe  the  multiple  of  tioelve;  see  the  note  on  Ezr.  8:31,  and  also  p.  246. 

Pit  is  obvious  that  this  is  the  injmediate  sequel  of  Ezr.  9:1 — 10:44.  Cf. 
with  this  clause  especially  Ezr.  9:1  and  10:11;  and  see,  further,  the  intro- 
ductory remarks. 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Origixal  Sequence  275 

their  God  for  a  fourth  part  of  tlie  day;  and  for  another  fourth 
part  they  made  confession,  and  worshiped  Yahw6  their  God. 
*Then  Jeshua  and  the  sons'"  of  Kadmiel,  (namely)  Shechaniah,'' 
Bunni,  Sherebiah,  Bani,  and  Chenani,  stood  upon  the  elevated 
place  of  the  Levites  and  cried  with  a  -loud  voice  unto  Yahw6  their 
God.  ^Also  the  Levites,  Hashabneiah,''  Sherebiah,  Hodiah,  She- 
baniah,  and  Pethahiah,  said:  Come,"'  bless  Yahw6  your  God. 
[And  Ezra  said:  Blessed  art  thou,  Yahw6  our  God,*]  from  ever- 
lasting to  everlasting;  and  blessed  be  thy  name,  glorious  and' 
exalted  above  all  blessing  and  praise.  *^Thou,  Yahw6,  art  (God) 
alone.  Thou  hast  made  the  heavens,  the  heaven^  of  heavens,  and 
all  their  host;  the  earth,  and  all  creatures  that  are  upon  it;  the 
seas,  and  all  things  that  are  in  them.  Thou  givest  life  to  them 
all,  and  to  thee  the   host   of   heaven   boweth   down.  ( Then 

follows,  in  vss.  7-37,  the  remainder  of  the  prcnjer,  the  last  n-ords 
of  wliich  are  these:)  ^''Behold,  we  are  vassals  today;  and  as 

for  the  land  which  thou  gavest  to  our  fathers,  to  eat  its  fruit  and 
its  good  things,  we  are  bondmen  upon  it.  ^'If  bringeth  forth  its 
abundant  produce  for  the  kings  whom  thou  hast  set  over  us 
because  of  our  sins;  they  have  power  also  over  our  persons  and 
our  cattle,  at  their  pleasure.     Yea,  we  are  in  great  distress.''^ 

lOn  the  text  of  this  verse  and  the  following,  see  Xote  B,  at  the  end  of  the 
chapter. 

'It  is  possible  that  '^'Q^p  is  to  be  taken  here  in  its  literal  meaning  "stand 
up;"  but  more  probably  it  means  simply  "up!  come!"  as  in  II  Chron.  6:41, 
Ezr.  10:4,  and  many  other  passages;  i.  e.,  it  is  used  here  just  as  SI  is  used  in 
the  parallel  I  Chron.  29:20. 

•Concerning  the  lacuna  here,  see  Note  C,  at  the  end  of  the  chapter. 

'The  conjunction,  to  which  some  have  objected,  is  quite  in  place.  The 
constriiction  which  is  virtually  adjectival  is  continued  by  one  which  is  really 
such. 

"Those  who  would  emend  here  (and  in  many  similar  places)  l)y  inserting 
the  conjunction  1 ,  should  bear  in  mind  that  the  Chronicler  is  fond  of  enu- 
merating in  the  Aramaic  way,  omitting  the  conjunction  in  every  place  but 
the  last. 

^With  the  Chronicler's  characteristic  omission  of  the  subject;  cf.  the 
note  on  Ezr.  10:19. 

"■The  closing  part  of  this  prayer  is  strikingly  similar  to  the  close  of  the 
prayer  in  Ezr.  9.  Vss.  33-37  here  are  the  expanded  counterpart  of  vss.  9,  13, 
and  15  there.  The  prayer  in  Neh.  includes  also  supplication  for  mercy  (vs.  32). 
Neh.  10:1  (9:38  in  the  English  version)  is  not  a  part  of  the  prayer,  but  the 
resumption  of  the  narrative.  It  is  not  strange  that  some  scholars  should  have 
thought  the  transition  here  "abrupt;"    it  is  smoothness  itself,  however,  com- 


276  Ezra  Studies 

10  '111  consequence  of  all  this''  we  made  an  abiding  covenant, 
in  writing,  and  to  sign  it^  stood  our  princes,  our  Levites,  and  our 
priests;  '^and  at  the  head  of  the  signers^  were  the  Tirshatha''  and 
Zedekiah/  ■^Seraiah,    Azariah,    Jeremiah;    ^Pashhur,   .  .    .   . 

etc.  [Then  follows,    in    vss.    4,-28,    tJie   remainder    of  the 

list.)^  '^And  the  rest  of  the  people,  and  of^  the  priests,  the 
Levites,  the  porters,  the  singers,  and  the  Nethinim,  even  all  those 
who  had  separated  themselves  from  the  peoples  of  the  land  unto 
the  law  of  God,  with  their  wives  and  their  sons  and  daughters,  all 
who  had  knowledge  and  understanding,"^  '*"  stood  fast  by  their 
brethren,  their  leaders,  and  entered  into  a  curse  and  an  oath,  to 
walk  in  the  law  of  God,  which  was  given  through  Moses  the  serv- 
ant of  God,  and  to  keep  and  perform  all  the  commandments  of 
Yahw6  our  Lord,  and  his  ordinances  and  his  statutes:  ^'to  wit, 
that  we  would  not  give  our  daughters  to  the  peoples  of  the  land, 
nor  take  their  daughters  for  our  sons;  ^^and  that  whenever  the 
peoples  of  the  land  should  bring  their  merchandise  or  any  sort  of 
grain  on  the  sabbath  day  to  sell,  that  we  would  not  take  it  from 
them,  on  the  sabbath  or  on  a  holy  day ;  and  that  we  would  forego 
the  product "^  of  the  seventh  year  and  the  exaction  of  every  debt. 

pared  to  this  same  writer's  transitions  ia  I  Chron.  28:19  (!),  Ezr.  2:68,  7:27  (!), 
Neh.  12:27;  to  say  nothing  of  the  many  places  where  he  leaps  from  the  first 
person  to  the  third,  or  vice  versa,  without  apparent  occasion. 

"I.e.,  all  the  events  narrated  in  the  preceding  chapter  and  in  Ezr.  9f. 
This  covenant  gave  the  finishing  touch  to  Ezras  reform.  The  words  bDHI 
rii?T  give  a  very  natural  continuation. 

y  Evidently  the  technical   term. 

^On  the  text  and  interpretation  of  this  verse  and  the  preceding,  see  Note 
D,  at  the  end  of  the  chapter. 

^On  the  number  of  the  names,  one  of  the  Chronicler's  multiples  of  twelve, 
eee  Note  D,  at  the  end  of  the  chapter. 

''The  construction  so  often  found  in  the  Chronicler's  writings;  see  Ezr. 
8:29,  10:5,  etc. 

=  This  verse,  which  betrays  the  Chronicler's  authorship  with  almost  every 
phrase,  fairly  represents  the  whole  chapter.  Prom  this  point  on  to  the  end, 
we  can  recognize  everywhere  his  peculiar  style  and  diction,  and  his  own  special 
hobbies.  Those  who  know  his  writings  intimately  will  see  tiiis  at  once,  for  it 
is  beyond  all  question;  those  who  are  not  thus  prepared  will  do  well  to  read 
II  Chron.  31:4-19  first  of  all. 

'^It  is  obvious  that  the  word  DS^^ri  has  been  accidentally  omitted,  by 
haplography,  after  HS;  see  E.v.  2.3: 10  f.  and  Lev.  2'):  3-7,  the  passages  which 
the  Chronicler  had  in  mind.  The  law  of  the  debtor's  release,  to  which  he 
refers,  is  of  course  Deut.  15: 1-3. 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  277 

^^Moreover  we  imposed  upon  ourselves  stated  contributions,"^ 
charging  ourselves  yearly  with  the  third  part  of  a  shekel,  for  the 
service  of  the  house  of  our  God;  "for  the  showbread,  the  continual 
meal  offering,  and  the  continual  burnt  offering,  as  well  as  the 
offerings  of  the  sabbaths  and  the  new  moons;  for  the  feasts,  the 
holy  sacrifices,'^  and  the  sin  offerings  to  make  atonement  for  Israel ; 
even  for  all  the  work  of  the  house  of  our  God.  ^^Also  we  cast 
lots,  the  priests,  the  Levites,  and  the  people,  for  the  wood  offering, 
to  bring  it  into  the  house  of  our  God,  according  to  our  fathers' 
houses,  at  appointed  times  year  by  year,  to  burn  on  the  altar  of 
Yahw6  our  God,  as  is  prescribed  in  the  law;^  ^'^and  (we  cove- 
nanted) to  bring  the  first  fruits  of  our  land,  and  the  first  of  every 
sort  of  fruit  of  any  tree,  year  by  year,  to  the  house  of  Yahw6; 
^'also  the  firstborn  of  our  sons  and  of  our  cattle,  as  is  prescribed 
in  the  law ;  and  that  we  would  bring  the  firstlings  of  our  herds  and 
of  our  flocks  to  the  house  of  our  God,  for  the  priests  who  minister 
in  the  house  of  our  God;  '"^and  that  the  best  of  our  coarse  meal, 
and  of  our  heaps  of  grain ( ?),'^  and  of  the  fruit  of  every  tree,  the 
wine  and  the  oil,  we  would  bring  for  the  priests,  to  the  chambers 
of  the  house  of  our  God;  also  the  tithes  of  our  land  for  the 
Levites; — and  they,  the  Levites,  were  to  reckon  the  tithes  in  all 
the  cities  of  our  tillage,  ^''and  the'  priest  the  son  of  Aaron  was  to 
be  with  the  Levites  when  they  reckoned  the  tithes;  and  the 
Levites  were  to  bring  up  the  tenth  of  the  tithes  to  the  house  of 
our  God,  to  the  chambers  belonging  to  the  treasury;  ^"for  unto 
the  chambers  were  the  children  of  Israel  and  the  sons  of  Levi  to 

^Soalso  in  13:5,  and  in  the  post-Biblical  usage. 

f  Namely  those  described  in  II  Chron.  29:33  and  35:13. 

s^This  is  a  very  good  example  of  the  Chronicler's  heedless  and  irrespon- 
sible mode  of  citation,  giving  merely  what  he  happened  to  remember,  or 
thought  he  remembered.  See  above,  the  notes  on  II  Chron.  3G:21 
(p.  120)  and  Ezr.  9:11.     Neh.  8:14  is  another  most  instructive  instance. 

On  the  text  of  this  verse  Bertholet,  Comm.,  says:  "L.  nach  LXX  1  vor 
□■•nbn  und  St.  nDTaS  rr'ab    nX  "^nnb."!     This  is  curious  textual  criticism. 

hRead  nrn^"iyi  in  place  of  ^rnb'^m  ?  The  accidental  substitution 
of  the  latter  word  would  then  be  very  natural  in  view  of  Num.  15:20  f.,  etc. 
In  the  text  which  lay  before  Theodotion  the  word  had  been  canceled  as 
corrupt.     The  supposition  of  a  gloss  has  not  much  likelihood. 

'Are  we  to  regard  the  use  of  the  article  here  as  evidence  that  this 
was  the  custom  followed  in  the  Chronicler's  own  day? 


278  Ezra  Studies 

briiig'^  the  offering  of  corn,  and  wine,  and  oil,  and  there  also  were 
the  utensils  of  the  sanctuary,  and  of  the  priests  who  minister,  and 
of  the  porters  and  the  singers;"" — ^and  that  we  would  not  forsake 
the  house  of  our  God." 


NOTE  A  (on  Ezr.  10:44) 
There  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  original  intent  of  this 
verse  is  expressed  in  I  Esdr.  9 :  36,  according  to  which  I  have 
restored  the  Hebrew  text.  The  plan  proposed,  in  Ezr.  10:3,  5, 
was  to  put  away  both  the  wives  and  the  children.  A  complete 
census,  town  by  town,  was  to  be  taken;  every  Israelite  who  failed 
to  appear  before  the  authorities  was  to  be  expelled  from  the  con- 
gregation (vs.  8).  The  people  agreed  (vs.  12),  and  also  acted 
according  to  the  agreement  (vs.  16).  "By  the  first  day  of  the 
first  month"  (dl  of  those  who  had  married  foreign  women  had 
appeared  before  the  judges  (vs.  17).  The  members  of  the  lead- 
ing priestly  house  are  first  mentioned,  and  it  is  said  of  them  that 
they  agreed  to  put  away  their  wives  of  foreign  birth  (vs.  19). 
Then  follows,  without  any  other  introduction,  the  remainder  of 
the  list.  At  its  close  must  therefore  have  stood,  in  some  form,  the 
statement  that  these  all  put  away  their  wives  (and  presumably  the 
children  also  would  be  mentioned) ;  no  other  continuation  is 
possible.  Furthermore,  the  immediate  sequel  in  Neh.  9  f.  asserts 
again  that  they  did  separate  themselves  completely,  not  only  from 
the  heathen  wives  and  their  children  (10:29-31),  but  also  from  all 
the  other  foreigners  (9:2,  cf.  especially  Ezr.  9:1,  10:11).     And 

■^The  contradiction  which  many  recent  commentators  have  found  in  vss. 
38-40  vanishes  when  they  are  understood  as  here  indicated.  It  is  not  even 
necessary  to  appeal  to  II  Chron.  31: 5-7.  This  whole  passage,  however,  is  very 
characteristic  of  the  Chronicler's  loose-jointed  way  of  thinking  and  writing. 

'The  usual  construction;  see  the  note  on  vs.  29. 

'"The  status  of  these  Levitical  classes  is  the  very  same  in  all  parts  of 
Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.  —  the  writer  being  generally  at  no  pains  to  express  himself 
exactly.  See  my  Composition,  pp.  22  f.;  also  above,  p.  236,  note  40  — and 
Bertholet's  Comm.,  on  Neh.  11:17  f.! 

"The  verb  (HTyD)  in  this  last  clause  concludes  the  construction  begun  by 
pD  in  vs.  31,  and  continued  by  np:  and  TZJIOD  in  vs.  32,  and  S?''33  in  vs.  38. 
The  Chronicler  intended  this  whole  passage,  vss.  31-40,  to  give  the  substance 
of  his  "abiding  covenant"  (n:'?2X  ,  vs.  1),  and  he  ends  it  with  a  clause  which 
both  sums  up  the  preceding  details  and  also  forms  a  highly  suitable  close  to 
the  whole  Ezra  story.  Notice  that  he  ends  his  expanded  story  of  Nehemiah  in 
a  very  similar  manner  (13:. 31!). 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  279 

yet  our  commentators  ami  historians   all  wonder  whether  Ezra's 
reform  was  pictured  as  successful! 

The  Chronicler  does,  indeed,  represent  this  evil  of  mixed  mar- 
riages as  present  once  more  (in  a  few  cases)  in  the  time  of 
Nehemiah,  a  dozen  years  later.  The  fact  that  he  does  so  showa 
his  own  great  interest  in  the  subject,  and  that  he  realized  the 
impossibility  of  preventing  such  alliances  entirely ;  it  also,  no 
doubt,  may  be  taken  as  an  indication  that  the  Jews  in  his  day  were 
not  as  exclusive  as  he  wished  to  see  them. 

NOTE  B  (onNeh.  9:4f.) 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  the  lists  of  Levites  given  in  verses 
4  and  5  have  been  corrupted  through  copyists'  errors.  The  chief 
reason  for  the  corruption  is,  obviously,  the  fact  that  the  one  list 
follows  the  other  so  immediately,  while  each  is  introduced 
by  the  word  Q^lbn  .  The  presence  of  ///?-ee  names  written  '"H. 
in  vs.  4  is  more  than  suspicious,  and  without  much  doubt  the  first 
of  the  three  was  originally  "'DZ^  or  72 .  It  was  the  influence  of 
the  similar  list  in  the  preceding  chapter  (8:7)  which  caused  the 
reading  of  the  name  "Bani"  here,  very  naturally.  Theodotion 
rendered:  'It^o-ow  kuI  viol  Ka8/j.ti]\,  'La'x^avta^*'  vlo<i  l^apa^ta,^^  viol 
Xavavi,  but  this  is  plainly  the  rendering  of  a  text  which  is  inferior 
to  MT.  For  the  "sons  of  Kadmiel,"  cf.  Ezr.  2:40  and  Neh.  7:43 
(the  text  of  the  former  passage  probably  correct,  that  of  the  latter 
certainly  corrupt).'*  The  possibility  must  not  be  overlooked  that 
the  original  reading  was  "Jeshua  the  so)i  of  Kadmiel;"  see  Neh. 
12:24. 

The  fact  that  "Shebaniah"  appears  also  in  vs.  5  makes  it 
extremely  probable  that  Theodotion  is  right  with  his  "Shecha- 
niah"  in  vs.  4;  see  above. 

The  first  three  names  in  vs.  5  came  from  vs.  4  (or  a  variant  of 
it).  The  accident  in  copying  was  due  to  proximity  j;Zhs  the  fact 
that  the  word  D^lbn  immediately  precedes.      The  name  "Hashab- 

iSTlie  Ilexaplar  MSS.,  J?  aud  1?,  have  hero  the  blunder  Xapapia.  The  coincidonco  of 
the  A  text  with  tliat  of  L  {2exe>''a5)  proves  that  Theodotion  road  rT'IDTU  ■  In  f'^  names 
immediately  followinp,  L  has  been  conformed  to  MT,  as  usual. 

•'  The  very  inferior  character  of  the  Hexaplar  text  is  always  apparent,  from  the  begin- 
ning of  I  Chronicles  to  the  end  of  Nehemiah;  and  the  most  corrupt  form  of  it,  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten,  is  that  given  by  Codex  B. 

i^Guthe,  in  the  Polychrome  Bible,  gives  us  a  most  astonishing  "emendation"  of  Ezr.  2:40 
based  on  one  of  the  blunders  of  the  Greek  text  in  Codex  B  (in  I  Esdr.  5:26),  whore  some  care- 
less copyist  had  converted  the  tachygram  of  icat  (?)  into  is.  With  this  help,  Gutbe  restores 
the  preposition  et«,  which  is  made  to  govern  the  genitive  case. 


280  Ezra  Studies 

neiah"  is  very  likely  a  copyist's  error  for  ''Hashabiah,"  the  man 
referred  to  in  12:24  as  a  ^' chief  oi  the  Levites." 

The  whole  number  of  the  Levite  assistants  on  this  occasion 
was  eleven.  The  six  named  in  vs.  4  began  the  ceremony  with 
an  invocation ;  then  the  five  named  in  vs.  5  called  upon  the  people 
to  unite  in  prayer.  The  prayer  was  offered  by  Ezra,  who  thus 
joined  himself,  in  a  way,  to  the  Levites  of  vs.  5,  making  the 
number  of  those  conducting  the  ceremony  to  be  twelve  in  all.  Cf. 
especially  12:36,  where  the  Chronicler  makes  his  Ezra  join  a 
company  of  the  Levite  ''singers." 

NOTE  C  (the  lacuna  in  Neh.  9:5) 
It  has  been  quite  generally  recognized  that  something  has  been 
lost  from  our  Hebrew  text  here,  at  the  point  where  the  long  prayer 
begins.  Theodotion's  Greek  prefixes  Kal  ehrev  "E^/aa?  to  the  first 
words  of  vs.  6;  and  it  is  indeed  obvious  that  some  one  man  (and 
presumably  Ezra)  must  have  been  named  as  the  speaker  of  the 
following  words,  which  occupy  more  than  thirty  verses.  But  it 
is  even  plainer  that  whatever  lacuna  there  is  must  be  sought 
further  back  than  the  end  of  vs.  5.  The  words  "^"ihlj  D'iJ, 
^Hhy  glorious  name,"  in  the  last  clause  of  this  verse,  originally 
formed,  beyond  question,  a  part  of  the  same  address  to  Yahw6 
which  is  continued  in  vs.  6.  The  immediately  preceding  verb, 
^D^^"! ,  ''and  let  thy  glorious  name  he  hlessecV  (literally,  ''and 
let  them  bless;''''  the  common  Aramaic  use  of  the  indefinite  third 
person  plural  in  place  of  the  passive),  shows  the  same  thing. 
Moreover,  the  four  words  preceding  this,  Dbl"n  12?  Dbl^'H  V2 , 
are  now  in  a  strange  context;  how  could  these  people  be  exhorted 
to  "stand  up  and  bless  Yahw6  from  everlasting  to  everlasting''''  ? 
They  were  not  immortal,  and  had  not  been  eternal.  Apparently, 
no  one  has  ever  studied  this  verse  carefully,  for  the  explanation 
of  the  difficulty  is  clear  almost  at  the  first  glance.  The  Chronicler 
is  drawing  a  large  part  of  his  devotional  material  from  the  Psalms, 
as  usual.  This  particular  form  of  words,  Dbl3?ri  iy*\  D^'iyn  '^2 , 
is  found  elsewhere  only  in  the  doxology  appended  to  Psalms  il 
and  106,  and  qnoted  from  the  latter  Psalm  bij  tlie  Chronicler  in 
I  Cliron.  16:36.  The  106th  Psalm  is  not  only  the  Chronicler's 
favorite  (see  especially  I  Chron.  16:34.-36,  41,  II  Chron.  5:13, 
7:3,  20:21,  Ezr.  3:11),  but  it  is  also  one  from  which  he  is  quoting 
in  this  very  prayer;  see  especially  vss.  27  f.,  where  it  is  obvious 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  281 

that  we  have,  in  the  main,  a  free  reproduction  of  Ps.  106:41-45 
(with  some  very  characteristic  changes,  such  as  Cri)/  Pii^"]  instead 
of  nz"!  Q"-3''S).  The  theme  on  which  the  Psahn  is  built  is  pre- 
cisely the  one  which  the  Chronicler  is  developing  here ;  and  it  is 
therefore  most  jfitting  that  its  doxology  should  be  used  by  him  as 
the  introduction  of  the  prayer.  When  in  addition  to  these  facts 
it  is  observed  how  in  another  favorite  Psalm  this  doxology,  slightly 
varied  (Ps.  72:18),  is  continued  in  the  words  (vs.  19):  "ond 
blessed  be  his  glorious  name  (inhlj  Doj)  for  ever,''"'  there  can  no 
longer  be  any  question  as  to  the  position  of  the  lacuna  and  the 
reason  for  the  accidental  omission.  The  original  text  is  to  be 
restored  as  follows:     ITTC  HS  Ij^n   ,  T2^p  '  '  *  '  n'lbn  iT^sn 

nbrn  "2  [,^r~':j^  r^yrr  ,nns;  -jrn  •)^'\vj  ^'r^''V\  -D^nbi^ 

'Xs^  ^1j"i2''1  ;  DblJ-Tl  "^  .  The  cause  of  the  accident  was  the  usual 
one:  the  very  close  resemblance  of  the  omitted  words  to  those 
immediately  preceding  them.  In  the  Hebrew  text  which  lay 
before  Theodotion  the  words  ^^IT"  IT^S'I  had  been  restored  (in 
the  wrong  place,  necessarily)  simply  because  it  was  well 
known  that  they  had  once  stood  at  the  beginning  of 
the  prayer;  there  is  no  other  satisfactory  way  of  explaining 
their  presence.'"  It  is  barely  possible  that  the  rov  deov  rj/jicov  of 
the  Greek  is  the  veritable  translation  of  irilbi^  (in  which  case 
we  should  have  either  to  regard  the  DlDTibx  of  our  MT  as  the 
result  of  correction  or  corruption,  or  else  to  suppose  that  a  similar 
accidental  omission  took  place  in  the  Greek  version);  but  in 
view  of  the  thousands  of  cases  of  confusion  of  rjfiojv  and  v/xiov  by 
Greek  scribes  it  is  much  more  likely  that  we  have  to  do  with  a 
mere  copyist's  error.  As  for  the  original  extent  of  the  passage 
omitted  from  the  Hebrew,  it  is  not  probable  that  it  contained 
anything  more  than  the  words  here  restored. 

There  is  one  other  very  striking  parallel  to  be  noticed.  In 
I  Chron.,  chaps.  28  f.  (not  in  Sam. -Kings),  the  Chronicler  depicts 
a  scene  somewhat  resembling  the  one  which  he  has  constructed 
here  in  his  story  of  Ezra.  All  the  people  are  assembled  at  Jeru- 
salem, and  David  the  king  offers  prayer  before  them.  He  calls 
upon  them  to  "bless  Yahw6,"  using  the  very  words  which  are 
uttered  by  the  Levites  in  Neh.  9:5;  though   in   I   Chron.   29:20 

19  It  was  a  somewhat  similar  case  when  the  three  chapters,  Noh.  8-10,  were  transposed 
a^ain  to  the  book  of  Ezra,  in  the  recension  represented  by  our  I  Esdras,  and  attached  in  the 
wronp  place  (nocessarily).  The  thinsr  was  done  simply  because  it  was  well  known  that  they 
had  once  formed  a  part  of  the  Ezra  story. 


282  Ezra  Studies 

the  command  D«"^ib^5  nin^  !!!?<  i5!  1j12  follows  the  prayer 
instead  of  preceding  it.  The  prayer  itself  begins  with  the 
words  (29:10):  bi^n'^^  ^nbs  n^n^  ,  Hn^  "j^nn  :  TIT  n7^^<n 
Dbli?  n3'"1  Qbl3'"J  ,  ^w^2S  ;  and  then  continues  in  much  the  same 
way  as  Neh.  9:6.  The  Chronicler  loves  to  repeat  the  incidents, 
and  the  set  phrases,  which  he  has  already  used. 

NOTE  D  (on  Neh.  10:  If.) 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  use  of  the  participle  in  10:1 
(D^H'^b ,  D^znij)  should  have  misled  some  translators,  ancient  and 
modern,  into  connecting  the  verse  with  the  preceding  prayer;  all 
the  more  because  the  first  person  plural  has  just  been  used 
there,  while  in  the  introductory  narrative,  9:1-5,  the  first  person 
was  not  used.  But  it  is  certain  that  the  verse  is  narrative;  this 
would  be  sufficiently  evident,  indeed,  even  if  it  were  not  directly 
■continued  in  vss.  29  f.  by  the  same  narrating  participle 
(D^p'^T"'-,  D^^^)  and  by  the  first  person  plural  {"our 
Lord;"  "ive  would  not  give  oh?"  daughters,"  etc.).  This  whole 
passage  affords  one  of  the  very  best  illustrations  of  the  Chronicler's 
intolerably  heedless  way  of  carrying  on  a  story;  the  best  single 
parallels  are  perhaps  I  Chron.  28:19,  Ezr.  7:27,  and  (carelessness 
of  another  sort)  Neh.  13:1,  6. 

In  vs.  2,  it  is  obvious  that  □"'"^'^nnri  is  impossible,  and  equally 
obvious  (see,  for  example,  the  English  versions!)  that  the  plural 
number  refers  to  the  signers  who  are  named  in  the  following 
verses.^"  The  original  reading  must  have  been  D'^/^riinn  ,  active 
participle,  "those  who  sealed"  the  document.  It  may  well  be  that 
Theodotion,  who  renders  by  iirl  tmv  acfypayi^ovrcov,  actually  had 
this  reading  before  him;  we  should  have  expected  him  otherwise 
to  render  by  icrcj^payLa/xevcov,  cf.  the  variant  introduced  into  the 
text  of  Codex  l!<  by  the  corrector  of  the  seventh  century.^'  Our 
massoretic  reading,  D"'/J^rinn  b^  ,  is  the  result  of  a  hq^siis  cdkuni 
caused  by  the  D^mn  bs'  in  the  line  above. 

The  name  "Nehemiah  the  son  of  Hachaliah"  is  an  interpo- 
lation ;  see  the  notes,  above,  on  7:70  and  8:9.  The  text  as  origi- 
nally written  by  the  Chronicler  contained  here  only  xri'^Tinn, 
"the  Tirshatha."  The  interpolation  is  the  same  one  which  has 
been  made  in  several  other  places,  as  one  of  the  inevitable  results 

20 The  desperate  expedient  of  making  the  plural  refer  to  a  plural  number  of  docunjcnts, 
or  to  the  thing.s  ( ! )  contained  in  the  document,  gives  no  liolp. 
21  See  above,  p.  96,  note  38. 


The  Ezra  Story  in  Its  Original  Sequence  283 

of  the  transplanting  of  the  three  chapters  of  the  Ezra  story  into 
the  book  of  Nehemiah.  In  our  Heljrew  text,  it  has  taken  [)lace 
also  in  8:9,  and  in  both  cases  the  interpolated  name  "Nehemiah" 
stands  side  by  side  with  the  original  '"Tirshatha."  In  the  Hebrew 
text  rendered  by  Theodotion,  the  process  had  gone  so  far  that  the 
unfamiliar  word  "Tirshatha"  had  been  dropped  altogether. '^^ 
In  a  few  Greek  manuscripts,  moreover — notably  in  Codex  B — 
the  same  thing  has  taken  place  even  in  7:70(!),  ''Nehemiah" 
being  simply  substituted  for  "Tirshatha."  In  the  old  Greek 
version,  on  the  contrary,  the  original  reading,  containing  the 
title  but  not  the  name,  is  preserved  in  8:9  (I  Esdr.  9:49) ;  and 
if  we  possessed  the  rest  of  this  version  we  should  doubtless  find 
the  same  thing  true  in  10:2.  Yet  even  earlier  than  the  date  of 
this  translation,  probably  soon  after  the  transposition  of  the 
chapters,  the  interpolation  of  the  name  "Nehemiah"  began;  a  fact 
which  receives  very  interesting  illustration  in  the  presence  of 
Nee;ita9inl  Esdr.  5: 40 (!).'=' 

The  "Zedekiah"  of  this  verse  is  a  character  created  simply  in 
order  to  provide  a  companion  for  the  anonymous  "Tirshatha." 
The  Chronicler  did  not  know  who  the  governor  of  Judea  was  dur- 
ing the  first  part  of  the  reign  of  this  Artaxerxes,  and  did  not 
venture  to  give  him  a  name;  but  it  would  not  do  to  appear  not  to 
know  who  he  was,  hence  the  name  of  his  associate,  n'p"II , 
"at  the  head  of"  the  list  of  signers.  It  may  have  been  the  case 
that  he  thought  of  the  governor  as  a  Persian,  and  wished  to  put 
beside  him  a  representative  of  the  people;  but  it  seems  more 
likely,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  otficial  who  had  contributed  so 
magnificently  to  the  treasury  of  the  temple  (7:70),  and  then 
shortly  after  had  helped  Ezra  instruct  the  people  in  the  religion 
of  Israel  (8:9),  and  who  now  pledged  himself  to  follow  the  law 
of  Moses,  to  keep  his  family  free  from  intermarriage  with  for- 
eigners (10:31),  and  to  show  himself  in  all  things  a  faithful 
member  of  "the  congregation,"  was  thought  of  as  a  Jew. 
Whether  the  Chronicler  intended  his  "Zedekiah"  to  be  a  prince, 
or  a  private  secretary,  is  a  question  of  very  slight  importance,  and 

22  The  6  kcCl  A9apa<T0a^  of  tlie  L  text  in  Neh.  10:2(1)  is,  of  course,  merely  one  of  the 
Lucianic  corrections  from  tlio  massoretic  Hibrew. 

2;i  The  tendency  to  interpolate  the  name  of  the  unnamed  official,  especially  when  he  was 
believed  to  have  been  so  important  a  person  as  Nehemiah  or  Zeriibbabel,  was  of  course  very 
stroi.g  at  all  times.  We  see  several  instances  of  exactly  this  sort  — interesting  parallels  to 
those  just  described— in  I  Esdr.  6: 17,  26,  28,  in  all  three  of  which  verses  the  name  Zopo^a^eA 
has  been  interpolated  for  the  purpose  of  idonti'ying  the  "  governor"  who  is  mentioned. 


284  EzKA  Studies 

one  which  it  will  never  be  possible  to  answer.  The  reason  why 
Ezra's  name  does  not  appear  among  the  signers  is  of  course 
this,  that  he  was  regarded  as  above  the  necessity  of  taking  this 
oath,  which  had  in  it  something  of  the  nature  of  a  confession  of 
evil-doing  (see  9:1  f.,  10:29  f.,  and  Hi^T  bDn  in  10:1).  The 
man  who  had  come  all  the  way  from  Babylonia  in  order  to  call 
the  Jews  to  account  for  their  neglect  of  the  Pentateuch  (Ezr. 
7:14!),  and  under  whose  vehement  rebuke  they  were  now  making 
this  solemn  promise  to  return  to  the  right  path,  certainly  had  no 
need  to  sign  the  document. 

The  number  of  tJie  names  of  the  signers  (O'lUnintl)  calls  for 
especial  notice.  This  written  covenant,  according  to  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  Chronicler,  marked  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
Israel.  The  document  was  one,  moreover,  which  contained  a 
summary  of  his  own  pet  interests,  and  those  who  signed  it  were 
the  representatives  of  a  community  reformed  according  to  his 
ideals.  It  is,  therefore,  a  foregone  conclusion  that  the  number  of 
names  will  be  found  to  be  a  multiple  of  twelve;  just  as  in  his 
"great  list,"  in  Ezr.  2  and  Neh.  7,  he  starts  ofp  with  twelve 
"leaders"  (Ezr.  2:2,  Neh.  7:7),  and  makes  the  whole  number  of 
the  people  equal  to  twelve  times  the  number  of  years  which  had 
elapsed  since  the  creation  of  the  world  (see  above,  p.  250).  Here 
in  Neh.  10:2-28  the  numbering  is  as  follows:  two  leaders; 
twenty-one  priests ;  seventeen  Levites ;  forty -four  laymen.  Total, 
eighty-four.     84  =  7X12. 


IX 
THE  EXILE  AND  THE  RESTORATION 

I.       PREVAILING    MISCONCEPTIONS 

The  Babylonian  exile  of  the  Judean  Hebrews,  which  was  in 
reality  a  small  and  relatively  insignificant  affair,  has  been  made, 
partly  through  mistake  and  partly  by  the  compulsion  of  a  theory, 
to  play  a  very  important  part  in  the  history  of  the  Old  Testament, 
The  successive  steps  of  the  process  which  resulted  in  the  erroneous 
view  are  all  plain  to  see.  [a]  The  exaggerated  account  of  the 
deportation  of  the  people  given  by  II  Kings  25  (see  further 
below)  furnished  the  starting-point,  {h)  At  about  the  time  when 
the  completion  of  the  temple  was  undertaken  by  Zerubbabel,  it 
became  customary  to  speak  of  an  interval  of  seventy  years. 
The  years  were  numbered  from  the  destruction  of  the  temple  until 
its  rebuilding;  that  is,  employing  the  terms  of  our  chronology, 
from  586  to  516  b.  c'  This,  the  original  "seventy  years" 
period  of  distress,  is  twice  mentioned  by  Zechariah,  in  1:12 
and  7:5.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with  Babylonia  or  with  the  return 
of  exiles.  (c)  Somewhat  later  than  this  arose,  naturally  enough, 
the  poetical  idea  of  the  "sabbath  rest"  of  the  worn  and  weary 
land.  The  love  of  the  devout  Israelites  for  Jerusalem  and  the 
sacred  province  in  which  it  lay  was  far  stronger  in  the  Persian 
period  than  it  had  ever  been  before,  and  their  reflection  on  the 
chastisement  of  Israel  assumed  this  characteristic  form,  amono- 
others.  While  the  temple  was  in  ruins,  and  the  religious  activity 
of  the  chosen  people  in  the  sacred  place  was  suspended,  or 
hampered,  Yahw6  was  purposing  to  bring  good  out  of  evil.  The 
people  had  merited  his  wrath,  but  his  love  for  Zion,  the  holy  city, 
who  had  already  "paid  double  for  all  her  sins,"  remained  una- 
bated. At  last,  after  the  interval  which  he  had  appointed,  the 
new  era  dawned,  and  the  abandoned  work  was  taken  up  again. 
Jerusalem,  after  its  day  of  rest,  entered  upon  another  week;  the 

'At  that  early  period,  there  was  of  courfe  no  difficulty  with  tlic  chronology  fr(  m 
Nebuchadrezzar  downward.  At  the  time  when  Hagpai  proplusied,  there  were  men  living 
who  had  seen  the  first  temple  (Hag.  2:3). 


286  Ezra  Studies 

land  had  "enjoyed  its  sabbaths"  (Lev.  26:34  f.,  43).'  {d)  The 
next  step — taken  prol)ably  many  years  later  —  was  to  connect  the 
interval  of  seventy  years  with  the  desolation  of  the  land, 
rather  than  with  the  disgrace  of  the  sanctuary.  Jerusalem  and 
Judea  were  pictured  as  absolutely  depopulated  during  this  time, 
the  whole  country  containing  only  uninhabited  ruins.  In  Jer. 
25:11  f.  and  29:10,  14  we  have  a  plain  prediction  that  the  land 
will  be  desolate  for  seventy  years,  at  the  end  of  which  time  it 
will  be  peopled  again  by  returning  "exiles"  (that  is,  men  of  the 
Diaspora)  who  will  come  back  to  Judea  "from  all  the  nations" 
whither  they  have  been  scattered  (29:14;  cf.  23:3,  8,  31:8,  32:37, 
etc.).  As  a  matter  of  course,  the  members  of  the  deportation  to 
Babylonia  receive  special  mention  (29:10;  cf.  24:5).^*  The  date 
of  these  passages  can  only  be  a  matter  of  conjecture.  The  con- 
nection with  the  seventy  years  of  Zechariah's  prophecy  is  certainly 
not  accidental,*  and  the  altered  conception  of  the  period  had  its 
origin  in  a  very  natural  misunderstanding.  Zech.  1:12,  with  its 
mention  of  the  long  continued  chastisement  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
cities  of  Judali  (see  also  7:5,  7!),^  was  supposed  to  refer  to  the 

2  I  do  not  mean  to  insist  on  the  date  of  Leviticus  26,  (  r  of  any  part  of  it.  But  it  do  s 
seem  to  me  sure  that  the  idea  here  expressed,  and  this  very  mann  r  of  expressing  it, 
originated  in  the  time  between  Zechariah  and  the  ''seventy  years"  of  the  pseudo- 
Jeremiah  (see  below).  The  Chronicler,  in  II  Chron.  36:21  (as  already  shown),  combines 
the  phrases  of  Leviticus  with  the  prediction  of  Jer.  25:11,  29:10,  but  this  is  merely  on  ■  of 
liis  easygoing  misquotations.  In  Lev.  26  there  is  no  allusion  to  a  return  from  the  Babylonian 
exile  in  particular.  The  people  are  scattered  through  the  lands  (phn-aO  of  their  enemies, 
and  will  come  very  near  to  perishing  there;  yet  Jerusalem  and  Judea  will  at  last  be 
restored  to  their  ancient  glory,  since  Yahwfe  is  not  false  to  his  covenant. 

3  In  the  prophesies  Cf)ntained  in  the  book  of  Jeremiah  three  distinct  class  is  of 
<  xiles  ari'  taken  into  consideration  from  time  to  time.  These  are:  (1)  The  "exiles"  or 
"captives"  scattered  through  all  the  lands  of  the  Gentile  world ;  or,  in  other  words,  the 
Jews  of  th  ■  great  Dispersion.  This  usage,  which  is  the  customary  one  in  all  the  Old  Testa- 
ment prophets  (see  below),  is  the  usual  one  in  Jeremiah  also.  (2)  The  choice  company  of 
Judeanexil's  in  Babyloni  a.  So,  for  example,  24:5  f.,  29:4,  10.  (3)  The  rest  of  the  people 
who  were  carried  or  driven  away  from  Jerusalem  and  the  vicinity  in  the  time  of  Nebiich  d- 
rezzar  (II  Kings  25:11,  26),  who  were  regarded  as  the  more  guilty  "remnant"  (Jer.  24:811'., 
29 :  16-19).    It  was  predicted  that  these  should  utterly  perish.    See  also  below,  on  Jer.  42,  etc. 

*If  the  Jeremianic  authorship  of  the  chapters  in  question  were  probable  on  other 
grounds,  we  could  hardly  refuse  to  admit  the  possibility  that  the  prophet  was  us  ng  a 
round  number,  and  that  the  twofold  mention  of  a  period  of  seventy  years,  by  Jeremiah  and 
Zechariah,  was  merely  a  remarkable  coincidence.  But  the  chapters  are  obviously  much 
later  than  Jeiemiah's  time;  notice,  for  instance,  how  24:1  quotes  from  II  Kings  24: 14,  6. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  view  which  I  have  here  set  forth  as  to  the  development  of  the  idea 
of  the  "  seventy  years."  and  the  d'^pendonce  of  Jer.  25 :  11,  etc.,  on  Zechariah,  is  the  one  hel  1 
by  the  most  recent  comm(mtators  on  those  books;  see  Duhm  on  Jer.  25: 12  and  Marti  on 
Zc'ch.  1:12. 

'•>  Xs  I  showed  in  the  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,  1H9S,  pp.  17  f.,  the  correct  render- 
ing of  Zech.  7:7  is:  "Are  not  these  the  words  which  Yahw^  proclaimed  through  the 
former  prophets,  in  the  days  whm  Jerusalotn  and  the  surrounding  cities  were  still  in 
quiet,  and  when  th'!  Ncgeb  and  the  Shepliela  wore  still  und  istu  rbed  ?"  Cf.  the  use 
of   3TiJ"i  in  this  same  idiom  in  1:11, 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  287 

devastation  of  the  region.  Hence  Jer.  25:12,  asserting  that  the 
seventy  years  will  be  ended  by  the  final  ov^erthrow  of  the  Babylo- 
nian kingdom  (that  is,  by  the  Persians).  It  is  conceivable  that 
these  passages  might  even  belong  to  the  Chronicler's  generation, 
but  it  is  easier  to  suppose  that  they  are  older.  They  seem  at  any 
rate  to  belong  to  that  late  period  (presumably  either  near  the  end 
of  the  Persian  rule,  or  else  after  the  conquest  of  Alexander)  when 
the  chronology  of  the  first  Persian  kings  was  a  matter  of  some 
uncertainty,  and  it  was  becoming  possible  to  transpose  the 
reigns  of  Cyrus  and  Darius  I.®  (<?)  Last  of  all,  when  the 
rivals  of  the  Jews,  and  in  particular  the  Samaritans,  had  begun 
to  use  these  existing  notions  of  exile  and  desolation  as  a  most 
dangerous  weapon,  was  produced  the  theory  devised  and  set  forth 
by  those  of  the  school  to  which  the  Chronicler  belonged.  This 
theory,  which  is  embodied  in  the  Chronicler's  own  version  of  the 
Jewish  history,  and  seems  also  to  be  presupposed  (in  less  fully 
developed  form?)  in  the  Aramaic  tale  which  he  used,  has  already 
been  described  at  length .  According  to  its  terms,  all  the  genuine 
institutions  and  traditions  of  Israel,  and  all  the  "blue  blood"  of 
the  old  community,  were  kept  safe  and  unchanged  in  Babylonia; 
while  all  the  elements  which  had  remained  in  Palestine  during 
"the  exile"  became  thoroughly  heathen  and  corrupt.  Judaism 
was  "restored"  completely  by  the  return  of  the  Babylonian  Jews, 
who  alone  constituted  the  true  church,  from  which  "the  people 
of  the  lands"  were  henceforth  to  be  kept  uncompromisingly 
separate. 

In  modern  Biblical  science  the  Babylonian  exile  has  been 
given  the  central  place,  and  made  the  dominating  factor,  in  both 
the  religious  and  the  literary  history  of  the  Hebrews.  This  concep- 
tion is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  most  characteristic  features  of  the  critical 
theory  which  in  our  generation  has  been  elaborated  by  Wellhausen, 
Robertson  Smith,  and  their  fellows  and  successors,  and  is  now  held 
by  all  of  the  more  advanced  Old  Testament  scholars.  Straight 
across  the  face  of  Israelite  history  is  drawn  a  heavy  line,  ilie  exile, 
which  is  supposed  to  mark  a  very  abrupt  and  complete  change  in 
almost  every  sphere  of  the  people's  life.      Above  the  line  is  what 

•"See  abovp,  pp.  135  f.  It  is  not  lik"ly  that  the  transposition  was  made  for  the  sole  purpose 
of  satisfying  this  theory  of  the  seventy  years.  More  probalily  the  .Jews  had  become  per- 
suaded, on  other  grounds,  that  a  Median  kingdom  preceded  that  of  the  Persians  ;  an  I  along 
with  the  new  theory  had  come  the  name  of  the  monarch,  Darius  the  son  of  "Ahasuerus" 
(Dan.  9:1;  originally  "Hystaepos?"  "('iaxares?"    Joscphus  has  "Astyages"). 


288  Ezra  Studies 

is  called  the  "prophetic"  period,  and  below  it  the  "legal"  period, 
the  latter  being  regarded  as  altogether  inferior  to  the  former. 
Before  the  exile,  the  great  writers  and  preachers  of  Israel ;  after 
it,  inferior  teachers  and  imitators.  In  the  earlier  period,  a  con- 
tinuous and  admirable  development,  in  national  character,  litera- 
ture, and  religion;  in  the  later  period,  a  low  level  at  the  start, 
and  a  steady  decline,  in  all  these  respects.  The  theory  of  the 
exile  itself,  and  of  the  nature  of  the  "restoration"  after  it,  is 
fundamental  to  these  conceptions.  According  to  the  accepted 
view,  the  Jews  who  had  been  deported  to  Babylonia  prepared  the 
elaborate  ritual  code  which  was  to  regulate  the  life  of  the  new 
community.  And  the  restored  Israel,  after  the  long  period  of 
suspended  animation,  was  a  church  founded  from  without,  and  a 
community  devoting  itself  henceforth  to  the  study  and  practice 
of  the  new  ceremonial  law. 

This  is  a  thoroughly  mistaken  theory.  So  far  as  the  Jews  of 
the  Babylonian  deportation  are  concerned,  it  is  not  likely  that 
they  ever  exercised  any  considerable  influence  on  the  Jews  in 
Judea.  We  have  no  trustworthy  evidence  that  any  numerous  com- 
pany returned  from  Babylonia,  nor  is  it  intrinsically  likely  that 
such  a  return  took  place.  The  "priestly  law"  was  neither  edited 
in  Babylonia  nor  brought  to  Jerusalem  from  that  country.^ 
Hebrew  literature  contains  no  "exilic"  elements.  Every  part 
of  our  Old  Testament  was  written  in  Palestine;**  if  Jews  of  the 
Dispersion  influenced  its  growth  at  any  point,  we  have  at  least  no 
evidence  of  the  fact.  The  wider  influence  of  Babylonian  (or 
Assyrian)  life  and  literature  was  potent  in  Judea  long  before  the 
sixth  century,  and  the  transition  to  the  Persian  rule  brought  no 
marked  change  in  this  regard.  The  development  of  life  and 
letters  and  religion  in  Jerusalem  after  the  great  calamity  con- 

7  No  Biblical  narrative,  it  must  always  be  emphasized,  asserts  or  even  implies  that 
Ezra's  book  of  the  law  originated  or  received  its  sh.tpe  in  the  foreign  land. 

**  My  view  in  regard  to  the  Second  Isaiah,  which  has  been  more  or  less  familiar  to 
sch  lars  in  the  United  States  for  ton  years  past  (sec,  for  example,  H.  P.  Smith,  Old  Testa- 
ment History,  pp.  371,  379;  W.  H.  Cobb,  in  the  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,  1908,  pp.  5  , 
56,  64)  is,  briefly,  this:  The  chapters  Is.  40-66,  together  with  34  and  35,  are  the  work  of  a 
singh-  author  who  wrote  in  Palestine  not  far  from  the  middle  of  the  Pirsian  period.  The 
nam"  "Cyrus"  in  4.j:  1  is  interpolated,  as  is  also  the  whole  verse,  44:28.  Likewise  inser  ed 
are  the  word- 523  aud  QiniSD  in  43: 14,  48: 14,  20.  I  hope  to  publish,  in  the  near  future,  a 
volume  (the  most  of  which  is  now  ready  for  the  press)  setting  forth  my  view  of  this  great 
poet  and  proi)het,  and  giving  a  brief  commentary  on  his  poems.  See  also  below,  passim, 
and  especially  p.  314. 

Ezekiel  I  believe  to  be  a  pseudepigraphon  written  in  the  Greek  period.  See  the  Intro 
ducti  n  to  my  '  'Notes  on  the  Aramaic  Part  of  Daniel,"  published  in  the  Transactions  of  the 
Connecticut  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  Vol.  XV  (1909). 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  289 

tinned  to  be  a  genuinely  native  development,  in  which  foreign 
elements  played  —  as  they  always  had  —  a  relatively  small  part. 
The  outlook  of  the  people  was  not  growing  narrower,  it  was 
becoming  broader  all  the  time.  The  religion  of  Israel — meaning 
that  of  the  whole  people — was  more  liberal  and  more  spiritual 
in  the  fourth  century  than  it  had  been  in  the  fifth ;  more  so  in  the 
fifth  century  than  it  had  been  in  the  seventh.  The  ceremonial 
law  played  no  such  part  in  the  thought  and  activities  of  the  people 
in  general  as  the  modern  theory  has  assumed.  The  catastrophe 
which  included  the  destruction  of  the  temple  and  the  extinction  of 
the  monarchy  was  indeed  a  crushing  blow,  which  left  its  deep 
and  permanent  imprint  on  the  religious  literature  of  the  Jews. 
But  the  Dispersion  was  a  calamity  which  was  far  more  signifi- 
cant, and  whose  mark  on  the  heart  of  Israel  was  much  deeper. 
The  dissolution  of  the  nation  began  even  before  the  fall  of  the 
kingdom,  and  continued  at  an  ominously  increasing  rate,  even 
after  the  building  of  the  second  temple.  It  was  the  influence  of 
this  fact,  more  than  anything  else,  that  revised  the  theology 
received  from  the  old  prophets,  and  gave  it  a  broader  scope :  Israel, 
the  savior  of  the  world,  even  through  its  suffering.  The  monarchy 
was  not  necessary  (I  Sam.  8),  and  the  community  could,  and  did, 
recover  from  the  catastrophe  of  580.  But  the  scattering  of  Israel 
to  the  four  corners  of  the  earth  meant  the  death  of  the  nation,  and 
only  the  miracle  of  a  second  "return  from  Egypt"  (Is.  4:3:16  ff., 
48:21,  etc.,)  could  restore  the  dead  to  life.  The  people  were, 
indeed,  "purified  in  the  furnace  of  afiliction,"  and  were  spiritually 
the  better  for  it,  after  they  had  once  risen  to  their  feet  again. 
What  their  religious  life  suffered  in  the  years  immediately  follow- 
ing 58G  was  merely  the  temporary  arresting  of  a  continuous  and 
splendid  development.  They  were  not  crushed  to  the  point  of 
despair,  nor  driven  into  any  such  selfish  exclusiveness  as  is  pictured 
in  the  Chronicler's  imaginary  history.  The  prophets  and  (still 
more)  the  Psalms  teach  us  better  than  that.  The  destruction  of 
the  temple  was  a  turning-point,  partly  for  evil,  but  more  for  good, 
seeing  that  the  nation  as  a  political  entity  was  doomed  in  any 
case.  At  all  events,  it  was  this  catastrophe,  not  the  exile, 
which  constituted  the  dividing  line  between  the  two  eras.  The 
terms  "exilic,"  "pre-exilic,"  and  "post-exilic"  ought  to  be  ban- 
ished forever  from  usage,  for  they  are  merely  misleading,  and 
correspond  to  nothing  that  is  real  in  Hebrew  literature  and  life. 


290  Ezra  Studies 

ii.     the  deportation  to  babylonia 

When  Nebuchadrezzar  made  his  last  expedition  against  Jeru- 
salem, in  the  year  586  b.  c,  he  did  his  work  of  devastation 
thoroughly,  sacking  the  city,  razing  its  walls,  and  burning  the 
temple,  together  with  the  other  principal  buildings.  He  and  his 
captains  also  carried  away,  on  this  and  two  other  occasionSj  a  con- 
siderable number  of  Jews  to  Babylonia,  planting  them  there  as 
colonists.  The  total  number  of  those  deported,  according  to  Jer. 
52:28-30,®  was  4,600.  The  majority  of  them  came  from  Jeru- 
salem, and  they  are  said  to  have  been  chosen  from  the  uppermost 
stratum  of  the  people.  Taking  this  statement  at  its  face  value, 
the  most  that  it  can  mean  is  this,  that  Nebuchadrezzar  and  his 
officers  carried  away  the  best  that  they  were  able  to  lay  hands  on. 
The  deportation  was  a  small  one,^"  and  even  if  it  really  included 
the  cream  of  Jerusalem,  the  life  of  the  city  could  not  have  been 
endangered  by  the  loss.  The  question  which  really  meant  life 
or  death  was  this,  whether  there  were  sufficiently  strong  reasons 
why  the  fugitive  masses  of  the  population,  who  were  scattered 
about  in  the  neighborhood  after  the  calamity,  should  return  and 
rebuild  the  city  after  the  withdrawal  of  the  Babylonian  army. 

In  regard  to  the  subsequent  history  of  those  who  were  deported, 
there  can  be  no  question ;  like  the  members  of  every  other  depor- 
tation, they  settled  down  promptly  and  permanently  in  their  new 
surroundings,  engaging  in  every  sort  of  lucrative  occupation  which 
was  within  their  reach,  and  adopting  unreservedly  for  themselves 
and  their  posterity  the  country  into  which  they  had  been  trans- 
planted. We  can  be  reasonably  certain,  even  without  direct  evi- 
dence, that  within  a  generation  or  two  the  most  of  the  principal 
merchants  and  financiers  of  the  districts  round  about  these  colonies 
were  children  of  Israel ;  and  that  all  of  the  quondam  exiles,  of 
whatever  trade  or  occupation,  were  hard  at  work,  with  the  tireless 
industry  and  practical  alertness  which  have  always  characterized 
the  race.  This  is  not  the  traditional  view,  to  be  sure.  According 
to  the  apologists  of   the  Chronicler's  school,  the   Jewish   exiles 

9  The  source  is  a  late  one,  but  we  have  nothing  better.  The  detailed  enumeration 
given  makes  the  impression  of  being  based  on  good  information,  and  is  all  the  more  worthv 
of  credence  becausu-  of  its  disagreement  with  the  exaggerations  which  ultimately  became 
current. 

I'iFor  example,  in  the  Chronicle  of  Joshua  the  Stylite,  chap.  52,  the  narrator  tells  how 
in  the  year  502  a.  d.  the  Arab  king  an-Nu'man  deported  18,500  of  the  people  dwelling  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Harraij.  The  blow  was  severe,  but  the  recovery  complete,  judging  from 
the  subsequent  history  of  the  region. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  291 

were  so  insecurely  planted  in  Babylonia,  even  after  "seventy" 
years,  that  more  than  forty-two  thousand  of  them  could  under- 
take the  journey  back  to  Judea.  According  to  the  137th  Psalm, 
which  plainly  draws  a  favorite  picture,  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
Zion  were  held  by  their  captors  in  an  unhappy  confinement  in 
the  strange  land,  like  beasts  in  a  cage.  They  sat  by  the  rivers  of 
Babylon  and  wept,  while  their  harps  hung  silent  on  the  neighbor- 
ing willows.  A  well-known  writer  on  Old  Testament  subjects 
has  remarked  in  a  recently  published  volume,  that  in  "//ifi  leisure 
of  the  exile''''  the  Jews  were  able  to  work  out  problems  for  which 
they  would  have  had  no  time  in  the  busy  life  in  Palestine.  The 
leisure  of  the  exile!  The  use  of  this  marvellous  phrase  is  of 
itself  sufficient  to  show  how  far  removed  even  the  modern  current 
theory  of  these  events  is  from  any  historical  possibility.  As  for 
the  religious  experiences  of  the  exiles,  we  may  be  sure  of  this,  at 
least,  that  they  very  speedily  found  that  they  could  be  faithful 
children  of  Abraham,  and  acceptable  worshipers  of  the  God  of 
Israel,  in  a  strange  land.  So  their  predecessors,  who  had  emi- 
grated from  Palestine  into  the  outside  world,  had  learned ;  and 
so  also  in  later  years  did  the  great  multitude  of  the  Dispersion 
who  went  forth  and  remained  true  to  their  faith,  but  never  came 
back.  Of  one  thing  in  particular  they  must  have  been  well  per- 
suaded, namely,  that  an  elaborate  ritual  was  not  an  essential  thing. 
If  they  reflected  on  the  causes  of  the  catastrophe  which  had  over- 
taken the  holy  city,  they  knew  very  well  that  their  prophets  had 
always  told  them  the  truth  in  saying  that  it  was  their  neglect  of 
the  moral  law,  not  of  the  ceremonial  law,  which  aroused  the 
wrath  of  Yahw^.  The  prescribed  ritual  was  the  one  thing  that 
they  had  observed  with  tolerable  faithfulness.  Almost  the  last 
thing  in  the  world  that  could  have  interested  any  of  the  Jews  in 
Babylonia  was  a  priestly  law  to  be  used  in  Palestine.  There 
were  doubtless  many  priests  among  the  exiles;  but  those  who 
continued  in  that  profession  (they  had,  in  any  case,  to  earn  their 
living)  must  have  found  all  their  time  and  strength  taken  up  by 
the  duties  which  came  to  them  in  the  land  where  they  lived." 
This,  again,  is  not  the  traditional  view.  It  has  long  been  custom- 
ary to  represent  the  deported  colonists  as  absorbed  in  the  con- 

I'As  for  the  ritual  of  the  sanctuary:  if  the  Babyh)ni;^i  Jews  had  a  ttMiiplo  of  their  own, 
then  its  prit).-ts  were  certainly  coiicoriied  to  elaborate  a  ceremonial  law  for  their  own  u.-e, 
bai-ed  on  their  own  local  praxis.  If  there  was  uo  such  temple,  wo  should  not  expect  them 
to  be  concerned  with  auytliing  of  tlu;  sort. 


292  Ezra  Studies 

templation  of  "the  law;"  a  view  for  which  the  Chronicler  is  chiefly 
responsible.  Thus  A.  Berliner,  Beitrcuje  zur  Geographie  und 
Ethnograpliie  Babyloniens  im  Talmud  und  Midrasch,  1884,  p.  5: 
"Bei  dem  Uberflusse  von  Datteln  in  Babylonien  waren  die  Exilir- 
ten  vor  Mangel  geschiltzt  und  konnten  sich  daher  ungestort  dem 
Studium  der  Thora  hingeben."  At  present,  the  "captives"  are 
usually  depicted  as  working  away  at  the  material  now  contained 
in  the  middle  books  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  even  as  producing  a 
new  written  work,  a  ceremonial  law-book'^  for  Jerusalem,  with 
an  interest  which  must  have  been  mainly  academic,  seeing  that 
they  could  not  have  foreseen  just  what  Cyrus,  Darius,  and  Arta- 
xerxes  were  going  to  do;  and  could  hardly  have  been  so  simple- 
minded  as  to  suppose  that,  if  the  cult  of  the  Jews  should  be 
restored  by  a  gradual  renewal  of  life  in  Jerusalem  and  Judea,  the 
native  priests  of  the  sanctuary  would  ever  accept  a  foreign-made 
ritual  law  in  place  of  their  own.  Marti,  in  his  Religion  des  Alien 
Testaments,  1906,  p.  66,  can  still  repeat  without  apparent  hesita- 
tion the  old  theory:  "Im  Exil,  wo  man  von  den  Schwierigkeiten 
der  Verhaltnisse  in  Jerusalem  nicht  gedriickt  war,  konnte  man 
die  Ordnung,  wie  sie  in  der  neuen  Gemeinde  in  Jerusalem  und 
Juda  sein  sollte,  feststellen;"  but  the  idea  which  this  sentence 
expresses  is  as  much  of  a  curiosity,  in  its  way,  as  is  that  of  the 
"leisure  of  the  exile,"  mentioned  above.  The  Hebrews  who  were 
deported  by  Nebuchadrezzar  were  doubtless  a  God-fearing  com- 
pany, in  the  main,  and  their  subsequent  religious  history  was 
probably  similar  to  that  of  the  better  Jewish  colonists  generally, 
in  all  other  parts  of  the  world.  But  we  have  no  literary  product 
or  other  record  of  their  religious  activity.  ^^ 

12 But  to  the  questions  What  book?  and  How  much  of  the  Pentateuch?  no  one  could 
now  give  a  plausible  answer.  It  was  easy  to  answer  them  thirty  year;;  ago,  when  the  theory 
of  the  priestly  law  was  comparatively  new,  and  the  critical  study  of  the  Hebrew  legislation 
was  still  in  its  infancy.  I  have  already  remarked  (for  example,  pp.  196  f.)  that  no  evidence 
of  the  exi^tence  of  a  separate  "priest  code"  is  to  be  found.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  suppose 
that  one  or  two  creative  minds  produced  the  body  of  legislation  which  is  imagined  as 
"  Ezra's  book  of  the  law."  Precisely  this  part  of  the  Pentateuch  has  a  literary  history  which 
is  "ganz  besonders  kompliziert  "  (Cornill,  Einleitung^,  p.  58,  cf.  p.  65).  Not  a  few  priests, 
but  many,  were  at  work  upon  it.  What  is  more,  their  labors  covered  a  long  time,  new  parts 
being  added,  and  revision  being  again  and  again  undertaken,  evidently  as  the  needs  and 
growtli  of  an  actual  praxis  required  —  there  is  no  other  reasonable  supposition.  It 
certainly  requires  a  notable  exercise  of  the  imagination  to  create  conditions  in  Babylonia 
under  wliich  any  such  variegated  ritualistic  production  would  have  been  natural. 

13  We  do  liave  mention  of  a  few  individuals,  belonging  to  this  deported  colony,  who 
remained  true  to  the  faith  of  th^ir  fathers  — as  we  could  have  been  sure  that  the  most  of 
them  would.  These  are  Nehemiah  (whose  ancestors  wore  presumably  among  those  carried 
to  Babylonia  by  Nebuchadrezzar),  and  the  men  named  in  the  very  difficult  passage  Zecb.  6: 10. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  293 

iii.     the  beginning  of  the  hebrew  dispersion 

One  very  important  fact,  often  overlooked,  must  always  be 
kept  in  mind  when  the  Hebrew  "exiles"  (voluntary  or  involun- 
tary) are  under  discussion;  they  were  —  and  knew  that  they  were 
— -  uniformly  much  better  off  in  the  foreign  countries  than  they 
could  ever  have  been  in  the  home  land.  There  is  evidence 
tending  to  show  that  even  in  the  latter  years  of  the  kingdom  the 
people  became  restless  and  began  to  emigrate.  The  most  of  the 
interior  of  Palestine  could  no  longer  support  a  large  population. 
Whether  deforestation  had  diminished  the  rainfall,  or  other  cli- 
matic changes  had  taken  place,  or  whether  it  was  merely  the  case 
that  unskilful  methods  of  agriculture,  continued  through  centuries, 
had  exhausted  the  soil,  at  all  events  the  land  no  longer  flowed  with 
milk  and  honey.  Even  at  its  best  it  had  not  been  an  agricultural 
paradise.  It  was  indeed  a  sacred  territory,  and  Jerusalem  was 
the  city  chosen  of  Yahw6;  but  not  all  the  children  of  Israel  could 
live  in  Jerusalem,  nor  in  Judea,  nor  even  to  the  best  advantage  in 
Palestine,  under  the  new  conditions.  But  far  more  important 
than  any  change  in  the  land  was  the  change  in  the  people.  The 
time  had  gone  by  when  they  could  be  satisfied  with  agricultural 
pursuits,  and  the  drift  toward  city  life  had  begun,  a  movement 
steadily  increasing  in  volume.  Jerusalem  itself  was  small,  and 
obviously  incapable  of  any  considerable  growth.  It  was  perched 
on  a  waterless  rock,  in  a  relatively  barren  region;  had  no  impor- 
tant industries,  nor  the  means  of  supporting  any;  and  was  not 
even  a  station  of  great  importance  in  the  caravan  trade  of  the 
region.  Zion  was  doubtless  "the  joy  of  the  whole  earth"  to  any 
devout  Israelite  who  was  in  the  psalm-writing  mood;  but  large 
families  cannot  be  supported  on  religious  enthusiasm  alone,  and 
men  of  energy  and  enterprise  must  go  where  they  can  find  oppor- 
tunity. Those  who  first  wandered  forth  were  quick  to  see  that 
each  one  of  such  great  cities  as  Babylon,  Nineveh,  Ecbatana, 
Hamath,  Tyre,  Memphis,  and  Thebes  had  a  true  claim  to  be  called 
the  joy  of  the  whole  earth ;  and  as  for  the  God  of  Israel,  they 
found — as  their  brethren  haive  always  found,  and  still  find — that 
they  could  carry  him  with  them.  That  is  why  the  emigrants, 
early  and  late,  did  not  return  to  the  holy  land.  The  same  thing 
was  happening  then  which  has  taken  place  countless  times  in 
history,  wherever  peoples  who  have  long  dwelt  quietly  in  their 


294  Ezra  Studies 

own  secluded  land  are  awakened  by  the  stir  of  new  life  from 
without,  see  a  new  day  dawning,  tind  themselves  outside  the  main 
currents  of  progress  and  achievement,  and  see  great  enterprises 
actually  within  their  reach,  if  they  will  but  go  forth  to  the  centers 
of  activity.  The  Hebrews  were  by  nature  both  worldly-wise  and 
energetic,  and  saw  clearly  that  the  future  of  the  world  of  affairs 
did  not  rest  with  Palestine.'*  Neither  patriotism  nor  religious 
beliefs  ever  kept,  or  could  keep,  such  people  at  home,  when  they 
have  once  heard  the  call  of  the  greater  world,  and  the  spirit  of  the 
new  age  has  come  upon  them. 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  date  the  beginning  of  an  era,  and  the 
history  of  the  first  stage  of  the  Hebrew  Dispersion  is,  as  might 
be  expected,  very  obscure.*^  It  was  not  merely  the  advance  of 
the  Assyrian  armies  into  Palestine  that  set  the  peoples  of  that 
land  in  commotion;  other  causes,  partly  unknown  to  us,  were  at 
work.  In  the  eighth  century  b.  c.  the  great  colonizing  move- 
ment of  the  Phoenicians  was  in  full  swing.  By  the  end  of  the 
century,  all  the  countries  around  the  eastern  end  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean were  in  a  ferment,  and  migratory  currents  were  flowing  in 
all  directions  as  perhaps  never  before.  The  great  cities  of  Asia 
Minor  had  been  founded,  and  the  Greek  peoples,  now  beginning 
their  marvellous  renascence,  were  flocking  to  the  Ionian  coast,  as 
well  as  in  other  directions.  Then,  as  the  next  step,  the  doors  of 
Egypt  were  opened  wide  to  foreign  colonists,  Psametik  I  (663-609) 
adopting  this  new  and  very  significant  policy.  Both  Greek  and 
Asiatic  traders  and  emigrants  poured  in.  "Phoenician  galleys 
filled  the  Nile  mouths,  and  Semitic  merchants,  forerunners  of  the 
Aramaeans  so  numerous  in  Persian  times,  thronged  the  Delta" 
(Breasted,  Histonj  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians,  1908,  p.  398).  It 
was  in  this  seventh  century,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  that  the 
inland  peoples  of  Syria  and  Palestine  were  thoroughly  awakened 
and  began  to  play  a  noteworthy  part  in  the  general  movement. 
Several  important  invasions  from  the  north,  coming  at  just  this 

nTlius  the  prophet  Amos  (6:1  ff.).  and  no  donbt  many  had  said  the  same  thing  before 
him.  asserting  the  rehitive insignificance  of  Israel :  "  Woo  to  the  secure  in  Zion.  the  confident 
in  the  mountain  of  Samaria  !  They  (the  Assyrians)  have  plucked  off  (^Sp3  with  the  Greek) 
the  foremost  of  the  nations,  and  will  come  to  you  (read  DD'?).  O  house  of  Israel.  Passover 
to  Calneh,  and  see;  and  go  thence  to  Hamath  tlie  groat;  thence  go  down  to  Gath  of  the 
Philistines;  are  ye  better  than  these  kingdoms,  or  is  your  territory  greater  than  theirs'? " 
(transposing  the  suffixes).  I  can  see  no  reason  whatever  for  supposing  vs.  2  to  be  an  inter- 
polation. 

iSQf  course  there  had  been  occasional  minor  II('brew  migrations  and  colonies  from  the 
very  first ;  but  I  am  speaking  of  the  great  movement  which  attocted  the  whole  land. 


The  Exile  and  the  Kestoration  295 

time,  added  their  infinence;  first  came  the  great  campaigns  of 
Sennacherib  and  Esarhaddon,  and  then  followed  the  inroad  of 
the  Scythians,  who  appeared  in  the  year  G2-J:  and  swept  through 
the  land.  We  have  every  reason,  then,  to  give  credence  to  the 
statement  found  in  the  Letter  of  Aristeas,  that  the  army  of  Psametik 
(II?),  in  a  certain  cam[)aign  against  the  Ethiopians,  contained 
Jewish  mercenaries.  The  gradual  outflow  from  Judea  which 
later  assumed  such  proportions  must  already  have  begun.  When 
the  temple  at  Jerusalem  was  destroyed  by  the  Babylonians,  a  large 
body  of  Jews  fled  to  Egypt,  as  might  have  been  expected  (see 
II  Kings  25:26,  Jer.  4:S-A~1).  The  words  which  are  put  into 
the  mouth  of  these  fugitives  by  one  of  the  Old  Testament  writers. 
(Jer.  4:2:14:)  had  probably  been  uttered  by  many  of  their  prede- 
cessors: "We  will  go  into  the  land  of  Egypt,  where  we  shall  see 
no  more  war,  nor  hear  the  sound  of  the  trumpet,  nor  hunger  for 
bread ;  and  there  will  we  dwell."  Numerous  colonies  were  founded 
(see,  for  example,  Jer.  44:1),  some  of  them  doubtless  earlier  than 
this  migration  of  the  year  586.  At  Elephantine,  as  we  have 
recently  learned,  an  imposing  temple  was  built,  in  which  the 
worship  of  Yahw6  was  carried  on  faithfully  according  to  the 
Mosaic  law. 

In  Babylonia  there  were  Hebrews  in  large  numbers  at  least 
since  the  deportations  by  Tiglathpileser  III  (734)  and  Sargon 
(27,290  inhabitants  of  the  Northern  Kingdom  carried  away  to 
Mesopotamia  and  Media  in  722).  Of  these  captives  also,  like  the 
most  of  the  remainder  of  the  early  Dispersion,  in  all  parts  of  the 
world,  we  have  thenceforward  no  sure  trace.  They  of  course 
became  good  citizens  of  their  adopted  countries,  used  to  the 
utmost  the  new  opportunities,  and  were  in  increasing  extent 
assimilated  with  the  surrounding  peoples.  How  faithful  they 
were  to  Yahw6,  the  God  of  Israel,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing; 
nor  can  we  even  guess  to  what  extent  their  descendants  could  or 
did  co-operate  with  the  Judean  captives  deported  by  Nebuchad- 
rezzar.'**    As  i-egards  voluntary  Jewish  emigration  to  Babylonia, 

1* Among  the  eastern  Semites,  religious  differences  often  completely  override  identity 
of  race;  and  if  the  Hebrews  of  the  Soutliern  Kingdom  really  held,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
sixth  century,  the  extreme  view  of  tho  apostasy  of  tlicirNortliern  brethren  which  isexprussed 
everywhere  by  the  (later)  editor  of  the  b.)oks  of  Kings,  wo  might  well  believe  that  tlie  mem- 
bers of  the  second  great  group  of  deported  exiles  would  show  little  interest  in  the  fortunes 
of  their  predecessors,  even  if  they  were  able  to  come  in  contact  with  tliem.  But  wo  know 
that  the  people  of  Israel  claimed  to  bo  worshipers  of  Yahwfe.and  it  is  likely  that  the  people 
of  Judah  acknowledged  th-em  to  be  such,  while  both  kingdoms  wore  still  standing. 


296  Ezra  Studies 

before  the  downfall  of  Jerusalem,  we  have  at  present  no  informa- 
tion at  all.  It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  some  considerable 
companies  of  colonists  had  not  turned  their  faces  thither  in  the 
seventh  century,  under  the  conditions  described  above.  It  is  true 
that  the  principal  streams  of  migration  at  that  time  ran  from 
north  to  south,  but  there  were  also  counter  currents.  Hebrew 
names,  in  large  number,  are  found  in  the  Babylonian  business 
documents  of  the  Persian  period.  It  does  not  by  any  means  fol- 
low, as  some  have  hastily  concluded,  that  these  are  the  names  of 
Jews  of  "the  Captivity" — meaning  the  colonists  deported  in  the 
time  of  Nebuchadrezzar.  No  tidings  have  reached  us  of  any 
temple  built  by  Jews  in  Babylonia.'  The  existence  of  such 
temples  is  certainly  possible,  perhaps  even  probable;  see  further 
below. 

But  the  Nile  valley  and  the  lands  east  of  the  Euphrates  were 
by  no  means  the  only  countries  which  offered  great  opportunities 
to  enterprising  Palestinian  colonists.  If  we  could  read  the  his- 
tory of  Phoenicia,  Asia  Minor,  North  Africa,  and  the  Greek  islands 
and  shores,  in  this  early  period,  we  should  doubtless  find  that  the 
waves  of  migration  in  the  seventh  century  and-  thereafter  carried 
some  Jews  to  each  of  these  regions,  and  to  still  others  as  well. 
Upon  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the  temple,  fugitive  com- 
panies swarmed  forth  in  all  directions.  Many  were  only  trying 
to  escape  the  immediate  danger,  and  soon  found  their  way  back; 
but  a  large  number,  certainly,  continued  their  flight  into  foreign 
parts,  and  never  returned.  After  the  restoration  of  Jerusalem, 
moreover,  the  stream  of  emigration  from  all  Judea  continued  to 
flow  ominously,  and  the  Jewish  settlements  in  foreign  lands  grew 
steadily  larger.  These  were  the  "exiles"  of  whom  the  Old 
Testament  prophets  are  constantly  speaking,  and  whose 
removal  from  the  holy  land  they  mourn  as  the  deadliest 
blow  to  Israel;  those  who  were  in  "the  north,  the  south, 
the  east,  and  the  west;"  see,  for  example.  Is.  11:11  f.,  43:5  f. 
("I  will  bring  thy  seed  from  the  east,  and  gather  thee  from  the 
west;  I  will  say  to  the  north,  Give  up,  and  to  the  south.  Keep 
not  back;  bring  my  sons  from  far,  and  my  daughters  from  the 
end  of  the  earth"),  49:12,  60:4-9  (ships  of  Tarshish  will  bring 
back  the  exiles);  Jer.  23:8,  29:14,  31:8,  32:37;  Zech.  2:6,  8:7, 
and  many  similar  passages.  The  Babylonian  captives  of  597-586 
were  but  a  small  part  of  the  whole,  and  it  is  not  often  that  they 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  297 

are  mentioned  separately,  save  by  the  pseudo-Jeremiah  and  the 
Chronicler.  Such  terms  as  "captivity"  (^Z'JJ)  and  "exile"  (n^b3) 
are  frequently  used  in  speaking  of  the  Jewish  Dispersion  in 
general,  and  the  usage  persisted  for  many  centuries." 

IV.       the    reviving    of    JERUSALEM 

It  was  this  sinister  combination  of  involuntary  and  voluntary 
exile  that  made  the  restoration  such  a  very  difficult  matter.  The 
devastation  wrought  by  Nebuchadrezzar,  terrible  as  it  was,  would 
have  left  plenty  of  hope  of  a  speedy  recovery,  in  a  city  of  great 
natural  resources.  The  neighboring  city  of  Sidon  was  repeatedly 
wiped  out  of  existence  (in  the  year  350  b.  C,  for  instance,  with 
the  slaughter  of  40,000  of  its  citizens  and  the  total  obliteration  of 
the  city  itself),  but  it  always  arose  again  immediately  from  its 
ashes,  and  was  soon  as  proud  and  powerful  as  ever.  If  there  is  a 
potent  reason  for  the  existence  of  a  city  on  a  certain  spot,  it  is 
very  hard  to  stamp  out  its  life  utterly.  After  each  catastrophe, 
returning  fugitives,  re-enforced  by  adventurers,  are  likely  to  put 
in  an  appearance  very  soon,  unless  they  are  kept  away  by  force. 
So  it  was  with  Jerusalem.  The  essential  fact  which  insured  its 
continuity  of  life  was  the  sacred  rock  on  the  eastern  hill. 
Far  fewer  people  are  drawn  by  the  magnetism  of  a  cultic  rallying 
point  than  by  that  of  an  important  commercial  or  industrial  site; 
but  the  attractive  force  exerted  on  the  few,  by  the  religious  motive, 
is  much  stronger  than  the  other.  We  know  very  little  of  the 
history  of  Jerusalem  and  its  neighborhood  during  the  century 
beginning  with  the  destruction  of  Solomon's  temple ;  but  we  are 
at  least  sure  of  these  two  things,  that  the  site  was  soon  occupied 
again,  and  that  the  principal  reason  for  the  revival  of  the  city 
was  the  existence  of  the  ancient  holy  place,  holier  yet  than  the 
temple  which  had  been  built  upon  it. 

In  II  Kings  25:20  it  is  said  that  upon  the  assassination  of 
Gedaliah  "all  the  people,  both  small  and  great,"  fled  to  Egypt. 
This  is  also  the  Chronicler's  way  of  looking  at  the  matter,  the 
entire  population  of  Jerusalem  and  the  neighboring  towns  removed 

1"  Thus  in  an  oflif  ial  letter  of  Rabbi  Gamaliel  the  younper  (beginning  of  second  century 
A.  D.),  published  in  Dalman,  AramaUche  Dialektprohen,  p.  3,  wo  read  the  superscription: 
"To  our  brethren  the  men  of  the  captivity  (Sni53  "^33)  of  Babylonia,  those  of  the  captivity 
of  Media,  those  of  the  captivity  of  Greece  (^T^T)  and  all  the  rest  of  the  Dispersion 
(Sm*3  •  'captivities  ') ;  your  peace  be  multiplied."  In  each  and  all  of  these  expressions, 
he  is  referring  to  Jews  who  had  gone  forth  voluntarily  and  formed  trading  colonies. 


298  Ezra  Studies 

to  Babylonia  and  Egypt,  so  that  none  remained  in  the  land,  or 
could  return  to  it.  Thus,  too,  the  traditional  view,  which  is  still 
formally  held  fast  by  most  students  of  the  Old  Testament,  assert- 
ing that  Jerusalem  and  the  cities  of  Judah  continued  to  be  nearly 
or  quite  deserted  for  forty-nine  years.  Of  late,  especially  since 
Kosters'  renewal  of  the  argument  against  the  historicity  of  the 
return  under  Cyrus,  scholars  in  increasing  number  have  been  dis- 
posed to  modify  the  extreme  theory  to  the  extent  of  admitting 
that  some  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  and  its  vicinity  remained 
near  at  hand  after  the  catastrophe,  and  either  themselves  began, 
or  else  assisted  in,  the  work  of  restoration.'^  This,  to  be  sure,  is 
not  at  all  the  Chronicler's  view;  as  he  tells  the  story,  the  popula- 
tion of  Judea  in  the  Persian  period  consisted  solely  of  the  returned 
Babylonian  exiles  and  the  heathen  of  the  land  (including 
heathenized  Jews),  with  whom  the  pure  blood  of  Israel  must  not, 
and  did  not,  mix.'^  His  theory,  as  shown  in  the  preceding 
chapters,  is  artificial  and  contrary  both  to  our  other  evidence  and 
to  reason.  As  for  the  statement  in  II  Kings  25:26,  which  was 
partly  responsible  for  the  theory  elaborated  by  the  Chronicler,  it 
is  merely  the  usual,  and  very  natural,  exaggeration.  A  large 
company  fled  to  Egypt  at  this  time,  no  doubt,  joining  the  Jews 
who  were  already  in  that  land ;  but  other  companies  fled  in  other 
directions,  and — most  important  of  all — a  very  large  number 
must  have  taken  temporary  refuge  in  the  immediate  or 
more  remote  neighborhood.  This  is  just  what  had  happened 
a  few  months  earlier,  when  the  Babylonians  made  their  last  attack 
on  the  city,  according  to  Jer.  40-43.  Thus  we  read  in  40:11  f.: 
"When  all  the  Jews  that  were  in  Moab,  and  among  the  children 

18 Thus  Wellhausen,  Nachrichten  von  der  Kdnigl.  Gesellschaft  der  Wissenschaften  zu 
GOttingen,  1895,  pp.  185  f. :    "  Man  hat  bei  der  Restauration  zu  sehr  ausser  Acht  gelassen. 

das  dochein  starker Bodensatz  der  alten  BevOlkerung  sichnoch  imLandevorfaiid Aq 

den  massgebenden  Kern  der  Gola  muss  sich  vielmehr  ein  grosser  Teil  der  ini  Lande  verblie- 
benen  BevOlkerung  angescldossen  und  sich  in  die  Cadres  ihrer  GescLlechtir  eingegliedert 
haben." 

1'' For  the  sake  of  enforcing  this  lesson  — and  especially  for  the  effectual  discomfiture 
of  the  Samaritans  — he  represents  the  "exiles"  as  having  twice  sinned  in  this  respect,  and 
sliows  how  tliey  were  punished.  Just  before  the  reform  of  "  Ezra,"  a  considerable  number 
of  the  people,  from  all  classes,  married  heatlien  wives.  But  after  taking  a  complete  census, 
the  work  of  which  occupied  several  months,  nil  of  these  wives,  ?/>(//i  then- child<  en,  were 
banished.  And  again,  whenNehomiah  is  made  by  tiie  Chronicler  to  complete  someof  Kzra's 
work  of  reform,  a  few  Jews  are  said  to  have  broken  the  solemn  covenant  of  all  Israel  (Neh. 
10)  by  marrying  women  of  Ashdod,  Amnion,  and  Moab  (Neh.  13:23  ff.).  This  time,  also,  the 
remedial  measures  were  ett'octive,  for  Nehomiah  says  in  vs.  30:  "  Thus  1  cleansed  them  from 
all  strangers."  The  seed  of  Israel  was  not  contaminated  to  any  appreciable  extent,  and 
only  tiie  men  of  the  Babylonian  captivity  took  part  in  the  restoration,  according  to  the 
rigidly  consistent  representation  in  Ciironicles-Ezra-Nehemiah. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  299 

of  Ammon,  and  in  Edom,  and  that  were  in  all  the  countries,  heard 
that  the  king  of  Babylon  had  left  a  remnant  of  Judah,  and  that 
he  had  set  over  them  Gedaliah  the  son  of  Ahikam,  the  son  of 
Shaphan;  then  all  the  Jews  returned  out  of  all  places  whither 
they  had  been  driven,  and  came  to  the  land  of  Judah."  The 
same  thing  is  said  in  briefer  compass  in  43:5.  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  source  of  this  information,'"  the  course  of  events 
here  described  is  just  what  is  usual  when  cities  are  sacked  and 
destroyed ;  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  flee  into  the  neighbor- 
ing country,  and  return  from  time  to  time,  in  straggling  bands, 
when  it  is  safe  to  do  so.  The  removal  of  this  multitude  of  tem- 
porary refugees  from  Jerusalem  to  the  nearest  surrounding 
coiintries  must  have  been  extended  over  some  time;  and  their 
return  to  Judea  cannot  possibly  have  been  accomplished  in  the 
way  stated  (though  the  words  were  perhaps  not  intended  to  be 
taken  strictly)  in  Jer.  40:11  f.,  41:10-17,  43:5  f.— as  though  "all 
the  Jews  in  Moab,  Ammon,  Edom,  and  all  the  countries"  could 
have  returned  to  Judea,  moving  as  one  man,  in  less  than  two 
months'  time  (it  might  easily  have  taken  a  month  or  t'wo  for  them 
even  to  learn  of  the  appointment  of  Gedaliah),  and  as  though 
they  could  have  been  led  about  thereafter  in  the  manner  described. 
"What  is  probable  —  and  we  have  nothing  but  probability  to  guide 
us  at  this  point — is  that  the  majority  of  the  fleeing  inhabitants 
of  Jerusalem  and  the  neighboring  towns  took  up  their  temporary 
quarters  in  the  nearest  regions  where  they  could  be  both  safe  and 
comfortable;  that  they  did  this  in  the  hope  of  retnrning  eventu- 
ally; and  that  the  most  of  them  did  actually  return,  some  coming 
soon  and  others  following  later,  in  larger  or  smaller  companies. 
Regarding  the  probable  character  and  quality  of  these  returning 
fugitives,  several  things  are  to  be  said.  (1)  According  to 
II  Kings  24:15  f.,"'  the  deportation  in  597  included  a  large  part 
of  the  best  men  of  the  land;  but  it  is  plain  from  subsequent  pas- 
sages of  the  same  account  (as  well  as  from  the  numbers  given  in 
Jer.  52)  that  the  majority  of  this  upper  stratum — nobles,  war- 
riors, craftsmen — escaped  the  fate  of  their  brethren.''^     As  has 

^'JThe  account  in  these  chapters  seems  to  me  to  give  evidence  of  dependence  on 
II  Kings  25,  and  there  are  plenty  of  raarlcs  indicating  that  it  originated  at  a  time  much  later 
than  tlie  events  described. 

21  The  two  verses  13  f.,  in  this  chapter,  are  regarded  by  the  most  recent  commentators 
as  a  later  and  mistaken  addition  to  the  text;  see,  for  example,  HenziiigiT,  Comm.,  and 
Kautzsch's  Heiliye  Schrift  des  A.  T. 

22  According  to  .Jer.  52:28,  which  is  generally  regarded  as  the  most  probable  statement 
of  the  kind,  the  total  numbisr  of  this  deportation  was  3,023. 


300  Ezra  Studies 

already  been  remarked,  Nebuchadrezzar  took  only  what  he  was 
able  to  lay  hands  on — and  the  best  are  most  likely  to  escape. 
(2)  The  sortie  from  the  city,  at  the  end  of  the  final  siege  in  586, 
included  the  king  and  "  all  the  men  of  war,"  II  Kings  25 : 4  f .  The 
king  himself  was  captured  by  the  Babylonians,  near  Jericho,  but 
"all  his  army  was  scattered  from  him,"  probably  into  the  regions 
beyond  the  Jordan.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that  many  of  the  most 
noble  and  influential  men  in  Jerusalem  left  the  city  in  this  night 
expedition  with  their  king.  (3)    We  have  information,  more 

or  less  valuable,  concerning  some  of  the  royal  house  who  survived 
all  these  calamities  of  sword  and  captivity.  Ishmael  ben  Nethaniah, 
"of  the  seed  royal,"  was  among  those  who  fled  to  the  Ammonites 
( Jer.  41:15).  Certain  daughters  of  King  Zedekiah  are  mentioned 
in  Jer.  41 :10  and  43 : 6,  as  belonging  to  the  company  that  eventually 
migrated  to  Egypt.'^'^  And  finally,  Zerubbabel  ben  Shealtiel,  who 
appears  to  have  been  the  offspring  of  one  of  these  fugitives,^^  may 
be  included  here,  if  the  Chronicler's  statement,  that  he  belonged 
to  the  house  of  David,  can  be  given  any  credence.^^  (4)  At  all 

events,  the  companies  returning  to  the  site  of  the  ruined  city 
included  many  of  the  most  devoted  adherents  of  the  religion  of 
Israel  (compare  what  was  said  above,  on  this  point).  In  short, 

if  we  give  our  sources  a  fair  hearing,  taking  into  account  aJl  their 
statements  and  not  merely  a  few  of  them,  we  find  that  they  do 
not  require  us  to  suppose  that  those  who  escaped  the  armies  of 
Nebuchadrezzar  and  soon  returned  to  their  old  home  formed  a 
community  essentially  different  from  those  which  under  similar 
circumstances  have  rebuilt  other  cities,  in  various  parts  of  the 
world.  If  we  could  learn  the  truth  in  regard  to  the  brave  few 
who  first  ventured  back  and  stood  by  the  ashes  of  the  temple,  and 
the  much  larger  company  of  those  who  were  striving  to  restore 
the  city,  a  dozen  years  after  it  had  been  destroy ed,^'^  we  should 

23  It  is  likely  that  these  "daughters"  are  merely  an  improvement  on  the  narrative  of 
Kings,  where  the  king's  sons  are  mentioned  (25:7),  but  nothing  is  said  about  the  rest  of  his 
household.  In  general,  the  longer  and  much  more  circumstantial  account  contained  iu  these 
chapters  of  Jeremiah  makes  the  impression  of  being  merely  the  result  of  embroidery  on  the 
story  told  in  II  Kings. 

-'*Kostprs,  Wicd'-rherstellung,  has  already  argued  very  forcibly  that  Zerubbabel  and 
Joshua  cannot  bf^  regarded,  according  to  the  evidence  contained  in  Haggai  and  Zochariah> 
as  having  come  to  Jerusalem  from  tlie  exiles  in  Babylonia.  See  also  below,  regarding  this 
point. 

25 According  to  the  Clironicler,  in  II  Chron.  3:19,  Zerubbabel  was  the  son  of  Pedaiali,. 
and  nephew  of  Shnaltiel. 

20  We  do  not  know,  to  be  sure,  just  how  much  of  Jerusalem  was  destroyed.  II  Kings 
25:9  says  that  tlie  Babylonians  burned  "the  temple,  the  palace,  and  every  great  house" 
(the  words  □blI31"l''  "^n^  bD   Ditl  must  of  course  bo  regarded  as  a  later  addition  to  the 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  301 

certainly  find  tliat  the  very  best  elements  of  the  people — the 
nobility,  the  clergy,  the  men  of  influence  and  enterprise  —  were 
well  represented."' 

For  the  period  lying  between  the  great  catastrophe  of  586  and 
the  reign  of  Darius  Hystaspis  we  are  absolutely  reduced  to  infer- 
ence and  conjecture,  so  far  as  the  fortunes  of  Jerusalem  are  con- 
cerned. No  historical  source  now  known  gives  us  any  direct 
testimony.  New  light  has  recently  been  thrown  on  the  history 
of  one  of  the  Jewish  colonies  in  Egypt,  in  this  period.  The 
papyrus  document  found  at  Elephantine  tells  of  the  great  temple 
of  Yahw6  there,  built  by  the  Jews,  and  declares  that  it  was  in 
existence  when  Cambyses  entered  the  land.  It  was  built,  then, 
as  early  as  the  reign  of  Cyrus,  perhaps  even  considerably  earlier. 
In  regard  to  the  relation  of  this  temple  to  the  one  in  Jerusalem 
more  will  be  said  in  the  sequel. 

V.     the   renewal  of   the  worship 

1.      Untrustworthy  Narratives 

The  story  of  the  restoration  of  the  Jewish  worship  in  Jerusa- 
lem by  Cyrus,  at  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  makes  its  first  appear- 
ance in  the  Aramaic  tale  which  the  Chronicler  has  incorporated. 
This  tale,  as  I  have  shown,  dates  from  the  third  century  b.  c,  and 
is  just  as  untrustworthy  as  the  Chronicler's  own  "history,"  because 
composed  with  the  same  purpose.  But  the  reason  why  the  story 
of  the  restoration  by  Cyrus  cannot  be  used  in  a  serious  history  of 
Israel  is  not  simply  that  it  is  found  in  an  untrustworthy  source, 
but  also  this,  that  its  artificial  origin  is  obvious.  The  strong 
feeling  against  Babylon  was  a  matter  of  course,  and  the  overthrow 
of  the  Babylonian  power  was  hoped  for  in  Jerusalem.  Cyrus  was 
presumably  hailed  as  the  rod  of  chastisement  in  the  hand  of  Yahw6. 
The  Jews  had  a  feeling  of  gratitude  toward  him,  and  whether  he 
ever  did  anything  for  them  or  not,  the  next  generation  could  not 
have  failed  to  have  a  tradition  to  the  effect  that  when  he  overthrew 

text;  there  is  no  otlier  way  of  explaining  the  verse).  A  largo  part  of  the  city,  then,  was 
still  habitable.  The  wall  was  of  course  broken  down  (vs.  10),  but  not  wholly,  see  especially 
Neh.  4:1. 

27  Nehemiah,  in  1:2  f.,  speaks  of  "those  Jews  who  had  escaped,  who  were  left  of  the 
captivity,"  living  both  in  Jerusalem  and  elsewhere  "  in  the  province."  As  he  makes  no 
mention  here  or  elsewhere  of  any  Jews  who  had  returned  from  Babylonia  to 
Judea,  it  is  fair  to  infer  that  the  "  priests,  nobles,  and  rulers  "' (2:lt),  4  :8,  5:  7,  etc.)  whom 
he  found  in  the  city  were. of  the  fugitives  who  escaped  the  army  of  Nebuchadrezzar. 


302  Ezra  Studies 

the  Babylonian  enemies  of  Israel,  he  also  gave  the  Jews  some 
positive  tokens  of  his  favor.^^  "Cyrus  the  deliverer,"  then,  was 
an  idea  which  in  any  case  considerably  antedated  the  third  cen- 
tury B.  c.  To  this  was  soon  added  the  notion  of  the  "seventy 
years"  intervening  between  the  destruction  and  the  deliverance, 
as  already  explained.  Thus  Jer.  25:12:  "When  seventy  years 
are  completed,  I  will  visit  upon  the  king  of  Babylon,  and  upon 
that  nation,  their  iniquity,"  etc.  And  29:10,  addressing  the  Jews 
of  the  Babylonian  deportation:^^  "When  seventy  years  are  com- 
pleted for  Babylon,  I  will  ....  bring  you  back  to  this  place." 
And  finally,  by  the  transposition  of  the  reigns  of  Cyrus  and 
Darius  I,  the  promised  deliverance  after  seventy  years  had 
been  made  to  coincide  with  the  beginning  of  the  Persian  rule.'" 
Thus  it  is  plain  that  the  materials  for  the  story ^'  told  by  the 
Chronicler  and  his  Aramaic-writing  predecessor  were  ready  to 
hand,  by  the  time  when  they  wrote;  and  this  fact  adds  its  own 
great  weight  to  the  evidence  —  already  sufficiently  strong — against 
the  trustworthiness  of  the  stories  regarding  the  favor  shown  to 
the  Jews  by  Cyrus. 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  similar  account  of  aid  given  by 
Darius.  It  has  the  same  notorious  origin,  and  the  manner  of 
its  genesis  is  equally  obvious.  Given  the  story  of  Cyrus,  and  the 
Jewish  chronology  current  in  the  third  century  B.  c,  with  its 
"Darius  the  Mede;"  and  the  narrative  contained  in  Ezra,  chaps. 
4-6,  follows  almost  as  a  matter  of  course.  If  Cyrus  aided  the 
Jews,  and  even  expressly  ordered  the  building  of  the  temple,  how 

2sWe  find  sucli  "  traditions, "  for  example,  even  in  the  case  of  Alexander  the  Great, 
though  th"  Jews  had  no  such  feeling  of  enmity  toward  tbe  Persians,  whose  yoke  he  removed 
from  them. 

29  Bear  in  mind,  however,  that  elsewhere  in  this  chapter  the  very  same  thing  is  sa  d  to 
the  other  "exiles"  belonging  to  all  parts  of  the  great  Dispersion  among  the  nations.  See 
above. 

30  This  transposition  certainly  involved  no  change  in  the  current  idea  of  the  deliverance 
from  the  Babylonian  yoke.  "Darius  the  Mede"  became  lord  of  the  Babylonian  empire, 
according  to  this  belated  theory,  but  not  as  a  hero  known  to  popula  r  lege  n  d.  It 
is  obvious  that  the  Jews  can  have  heard  no  tales  in  regard  to  h  is  chastisement  of  Babylon, 
ovhis  campaiijns  through  Mesopotamia  and  Asia  Minor.  He  simply  "  received  the  kingd^ >m  " 
(Dan.  6:1).  The  "  Medes  and  Persians,"  acting  in  concert,  overthrew  the  power  of  Belshazzar, 
and  the  Median  king  was  the  first  to  enjoy  the  fruit,  but  not  because  of  his  prowess  in 
this  conquest.  But  with  Cyrus  it  was  very  different.  Even  Herodotus  believed  that  he 
took  Babylon  by  force,  and  the  fame  of  his  campaigns  was  spread  (with  the  inevitable  exag- 
geration) throughout  Western  Asia.  It  was  to  him,  always,  that  the  "  everlasting  devasta- 
tion" Cnbiy  ni'OTDTU  .  Jr.  25:12)  of  the  conquered  land  was  attributed.  So  whether 
Darius  the  Mede  was  put  before  Cyrus  the  Persian,  or  not,  it  was  only  the  latter  whom 
the  Jews  looked  upon  as  their  deliverer.    See  also  p.  l')"),  note  25. 

31  But  not  the  story  itself.  Not  oven  in  the  pseudo-Jeremiah  is  thoro  any  place  for  such 
a  picture  of  events  as  that  which  is  given  us  by  these  two  writers  of  the  third  century. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  303 

did  it  happen  that  it  was  neither  built,  nor  in  process  of  building, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Darius  Nothus,  something  like  a 
hundred  years  later ?^^-  Wh'y  did  Zerubbabel  and  Jeshua  "arise 
and  begin  to  build"  at  this  late  date?  The  natural  answer  was, 
that  they  had  been  hindered,  by  hostile  intervention,  from 
beginning  any  sooner.  Jewish  pride  and  religious  devotion 
could  not  have  conceived  any  other  solution  than  this.  The 
renewed  effort  to  build,  described  by  the  two  prophets,  must  have 
been  the  result  of  a  royal  edict,  putting  an  end  to  the  forcible 
restraint  previously  in  effect  ever  since  the  early  part 
of  the  reign  of  Cyrus.  Add  the  ever-present  hostility  of  the 
Samaritans  and  their  allies,  and  the  whole  of  the  material  of  the 
Aramaic  narrative  is  provided. 

2.      Conditions  at  tlie  Time  of  Haggai  and  ZechariaJi 

The  two  brief  prophecies  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah  give  us  a 
glimpse  of  conditions  in  Jerusalem  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign 
of  Darius  I  Hystaspis,^^  and  they  are  our  first  and  only  sure 
source  of  information  between  Nebuchadrezzar  and  Nehemiah. 
The  details  which  we  are  able  to  glean  from  these  two  prophecies 
suffice  to  give  us  a  tolerably  clear  general  idea  of  the  conditions 
in  which  they  originated.  One  thing  becomes  more  and  more 
certain,  as  we  read;  the  community  in  which  Haggai  and  Zecha- 
riah lived  was  not  made  up  chiefly,  or  even  largely,  of  recently 
returned  exiles;  no  such  event  as  the  Chronicler's  "restoration" 
can  have  taken  place  only  seventeen  years  before  the  two  preachers 
began  the  work  of  which  we  have  the  record. 

The  time  is  one  of  quiet  and  expectancy  (Zech.  1:  11).  For 
a  long  time  past,  the  people  have  been  struggling  along,  making 
some  gain  in  a  material  way,  but  with  their  expectation  as  the 
chosen  people  sadly  disappointed.  Quite  a  measure  of  pros- 
perity has  been  reached,  both  in  the,  city  itself  and  in  the  land 
round  about — though  in  some  things,  notably  agriculture,  their 
success  has  not  been  such  as  they  could  have  expected;  but  their 
religious  prosperity  has  for  many  years  seemed  to  be  almost  at 
a  standstill.  In  1 :  12  the  angel  of  Yahw6  is  represented  as  saying: 
"How  long,   O   Yahw6  of  Hosts,   wilt  thou  not  have  mercy  on 

32  According  to  tlipir  (Mironolf)Ky,  th"  "Darius"  uanied  in  Ha«cai  ami  Zi'chariali  could 
only  be  Darius  II.  They  may  not,  ind  ed.  Iiave  believed  tlio  interval  to  bo  as  long  as  one 
hundred  years. 

33  Hag.  2:3  (notice  especially  tlie  position  of  the  word  HnD  seems  to  make  this  certain. 


304  Ezra  Studies 

Jerusalem  and  the  cities  of  Judea,  at  which  thou  hast  been  angry 
these  seventy  years?"  That  is,  for  seventy  years  past  Yahw6  has 
not  shown  his  people  any  special  favor.  Imagine  the  prophet 
saying  this  to  a  community  which  only  a  few  years  before  (accord- 
ing to  the  story  told  by  the  school  to  which  the  Chronicler 
belonged)  had  seen  Yahw6  "turn  its  captivity"  in  a  manner 
worthy  to  be  put  beside  the  deliverance  from  Egypt!  But  though 
Israel  has  long  seemed  to  be  forsaken  by  its  God,  yet  now  a 
change  for  the  better  is  promised,  and  the  people  themselves,  by 
their  own  altered  conduct,  are  to  bring  it  about.  The  question 
of  their  prosperity  (the  prophet  would  say)  rests  with  them  alone. 
Yahw6  is  always  ready,  but  waits  for  his  people  to  do  their  duty. 
They  have  long  been  selfish  and  negligent;  the  temple  should 
have  been  restored  some  time  ago,  but  they  have  been  willing  to 
postpone  the  building.  When  they  have  done  this  one  significant 
thing,  Yahw6  will  bless  them  spiritually,  and  will  also  increase 
their  material  welfare  (Hag.  2:  15-19;  cf.  Zech.  8:  9-12).  The 
extent  to  which  a  considerable  part  of  the  population  had  been 
dependent  on  the  yield  of  the  soil  is  indicated  by  Haggai  espe- 
cially. It  is  also  plain,  from  his  words,  that  they  have  been  engaged 
in  agriculture  for  a  long  time.  During  the  more  recent  past, 
things  have  not  gone  so  well  as  during  the  more  remote  past 
within  their  memory.  They  had  been  wont  to  expect  so  and  so 
much  from  the  wine  vat  and  the  oil  press,  but  in  the  recent  years 
only  a  part  of  the  customary  amount  has  been  yielded  (Hag. 
2:  15  f.).^*  It  is  important  to  observe,  however,  that  in  spite  of 
this  long-continued  shortage  of  their  crops,  the  people  whom 
Haggai  addresses  are  living  in  such  comfortable  condition  that 
the  prophet  can  reproach  them,  collectively,  with  their  short- 
sighted selfishness  in  enjoying  a  measure  of  luxury  in  their  own 
fine  houses,  while  the  worship  of  Yahw6  is  carried  on  in  a  miser- 
ably inadequate  structure.  (1:4).  All  this  appears  to  describe 
the  circumstances  of  a  people  occupying  a  land  where  both  they 
and  their  fathers  before  them  have  been  dwelling  in  security  and 
reaping  some  good  fruit  of  their  labor.  Two  generations  had 
elapsed  since  the  devastation  of  the  province,  and  within  that 
time  much  that  was  lost  had  been  regained.  The  great  evil, 
overshadowing  all  others,  is  the  same  one  which  is  lamented  by 

3«In  vs.  16,  iustead  of  DriT^rTO  we  must  of  course  read,  with  the  Greek,  CtT^")!!  "''53 
or  'n  rrOi  "flow  did  it  fare  with  you?"  (the  same  idiom  which  is  found  in  Ruth  3: 16  aud 
elsewhere). 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  305 

all  the  other  later  prophets,  the  Dispersion.  Israel  has  been 
scattered  to  the  four  winds  (Zech.  2:10,  12).  The  comforting 
promise  is,  that  at  last  the  exiles  shall  be  brought  back  "from 
the  east  and  from  the  west"  (8:7).  Yahw6  will  punish  all  the 
nations  which  are  holding  and  oppressing  his  children  (1  :  15, 
2:12  f.). 

Those  to  whom  Zechariah  and  Haggai  are  speaking  have  been 
observing  the  public  worship  of  Yahw6  in  the  time-honored 
manner,  with  the  usual  sacrifices  and  cremonies,  but  in  a  Hirp  TCZl 
whose  appearance  and  equipment  have  become  a  shame  to  them. 
A  temporary  structure  had  been  erected  some  time  ago,  on  the 
sacred  site,  and  the  majority  of  the  people  are  still  willing  to 
continue  in  the  use  of  this  makeshift.  Haggai  says:  "Is  it  a 
time  for  you  to  dwell  in  your  ceiled  houses,  while  this  house  lieth 
in  ruins?"  (l:i).  The  same  thing  is  implied  in  1:2,  which 
quotes  the  people  as  saying:  "The  time  for  building  the  house 
of  Yahw6  is  not  yet  come."  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  insist  that 
no  one  would  have  said  this  at  a  time  when  no  Jiouse  of  Yfducd 
ivas  in  existence,  while  the  people  were  comfortably  housed. 
What  they  were  saying  was:  "The  building  which  we  have 
will  do  for  some  time  longer."  Certain  passages  in  Zechariah 
indicate  the  same  thing.  In  3:8  it  is  implied  that  Jeshua  and 
the  priests  "who  dwell  in  his  presence"  are,  and  have  been, 
in  the  regular  service  of  the  sanctuary.  So  also  in  7:2  f.,  where 
men  have  been  sent  from  a  distance  to  inquire  at  the  temple,  of 
"the  priests  who  belong  to  the  house  of  Yahw6  of  Hosts."  And 
finally,  in  Hag.  2:10-14,  dated  in  the  second  year  of  Darius, 
there  is  express  mention  of  the  tem})le  sacrifices  ("that  which 
they  offer  there;"  vs.  14).  The  cult  had  of  course  not  ceased  in 
Jerusalem  during  all  these  years  since  the  city  had  been  re- 
peopled. 

VI.       GENERAL    SUMMARY,    586    TO    444    B.C. 

We  may  therefore  sketch  the  course  of  events  from  the  date 
of  the  destruction  of  the  temple  until  that  of  its  restoration  in  the 
time  of  Darius  I  as  follows.  Soon  after  the  army  of  Nebuchad- 
rezzar had  withdrawn  from  Judea,  companies  of  returning  fugi- 
tives began  to  show  themselves  in  the  neighborhood  of  Jerusalem. 
In  a  short  time,  the  work  of  bringing  back  life  to  the  ruined  city 
had  begun.     The  many  whose   homes   had  not  been  destroyed 


306  Ezra  Studies 

returned  to  them,  while  others  strove  to  rebuild  and  repair.  One 
of  the  first  undertakings,  of  course,  after  something  like  a  settled 
life  had  been  reached,  was  the  erection  of  a  temporary  house  for 
the  worship  of  Yahw6,  on  some  part  of  the  site  of  Solomon's 
temple.  The  condition  of  the  people,  it  is  needless  to  say,  was 
most  wretched  at  first,  and  improved  but  slowly.  Agriculture 
was  the  main  stay  in  the  beginning,  and  by  slow  degrees  a  few 
industries  and  a  struggling  trade  grew  up.  One  generation  passed 
away,  and  their  children  carried  on  the  work.  The  city  grew 
constantly  larger.  By  the  beginning  of  the  Persian  period,  fifty 
years  after  the  great  calamity,  something  like  prosperity  had  been 
restored;  and  a  little  later,  in  the  time  of  Darius  Hystaspis,  the 
people  were  rebuked  and  incited  by  Haggai,  Zechariah,  and  per- 
haps other  prophets,  until  they  undertook  to  build  a  worthy 
temple  in  place  of  the  temporary  house.  The  high  priest  at  that 
time  was  Jeshua,  the  son  of  Jozadak,  while  the  recognized  leader 
of  the  people  was  Zerubbabel  the  son  of  Shealtiel.^'  The  work 
of  building  the  new  temple  began  in  the  second  year  of  Darius, 
on  the  twenty-fourth  day  of  the  sixth  month  (Hag.  1:14  f.,  cf. 
Zech.  1:1,  15  if.),  that  is,  in  the  year  520  B.C.  How  soon  it 
was  finished,  we  do  not  know;  the  date  given  in  Ezr.  6:15  seems 

35 It  is  not  likely  that  Zerubbabel  was  governor  of  Judea.  The  prophecy  of 
Zechariah  says  nothing  which  would  indicate  this,  while  in  every  one  of  the  four  passages 
in  Haggai  where  he  is  given"  tUe  title  (1:1,  14;  2:2,  21)  comparison  of  the  Greek  shows 
that  the  words  mirT'  nnS  are  a  later  interpolation  in  the  Hebrew.  The  title 
would  never  have  been  thus  deliberately  removed  from  any  text,  Hebrew  or  Greek;  but 
the  interpolation  of  it  would  be  most  natural  in  consequence  of  Ezr.  6:7.  The  Aramic  nar- 
rator concluded,  from  the  prominence  given  to  Zerubbabel  in  both  Haggai  and  Zechariah, 
that  he  was  the  governor;  but  if  this  had  really  been  the  case,  some  passage  in  the  one  or 
the  other  of  the  two  prophets  would  have  been  likely  to  give  him  his  title. 

The  "Sheshbazzar"  of  the  Aramaic  story,  often  identified  with  Zerubbabel,  may  also 
be  considered  here.  He  was  created  by  the  narrator  in  order  to  show  that  Cyrus  was  in 
earnest  with  his  decree,  and  that  a  beginning  was  really  made.  (Tlie  name  w.is  as  easily 
found  as  was  Daniel's  Persian  name,  "  Helteshazzar.")  According  to  the  Aramaic  narra- 
tive, he  preceded  Zerubbabel  by  at  least  two  generations.  He  "laid  the  foundation  "  of  t  h  e 
first  building  on  the  site  of  the  temple  ruin;  Zerubbabel  "  laid  the  foundation  "  of  the 
permanent  structure  which  was  built  in  the  days  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah.  The 
Chronicler,  on  tlie  other  hand,  made  Zerubbabel's  career  begin  in  the  time  of  Cyrus  (s^ee  pp. 
59  f.) !  He  therefore  either  believed  the  interval  before  Darius  II  to  be  shorter  than  it  actu- 
ally was,  or  else  supposed  his  heroes  to  have  lived  to  a  great  age.  As  for  Sheshbazzar,  he 
apparently  preferred  to  ignore  him,  after  the  first  necessary  mention  (necessary  because  of 
Ezr.  5: 14-16).  It  is  not  likely  that  he  identified  him  with  Zerubbabel,  for  if  he  had  done  so 
he  would  have  boon  pretty  sure  to  make  this  important  fact  plain.  As  has  already  been 
observed,  when  he  has  occasion  to  mention  the  governor  of  Judea  in  the  time  of  the 
return  under  Cyrus,  ho  does  not  commit  himself,  but  simply  empktys  the  title 
"Tirshatha"  (see  above,  p.  263).  It  was  inevitable  that  some  at  a  later  date  should  make 
the  identification  of  Sheshbazzar  with  Zerubbabel;  in  the  first  place,  because  both  are 
styled  "governor"  of  Judea  in  the  Aramaic  narrative,  and  then  are  made  contemporaries 
by  the  Chronicler;  and  in  the  second  place,  bee.auso  of  the  comparison  of  Ezr.  5: 16  with 
Zech.  4:9.  Hence  the  identification,  by  means  of  an  explanatory  interpolation,  in  I  Esdr. 
6:18. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  307 

to  be  the  Chronicler's  (see  p.  158),  and  we  have  every  reason  to 
hold  aloof  from  such  information  of  his  furnishing. ^"^ 

At  the  time  when  the  temple  was  rebuilt,  the  wall  of  the  city 
was  stiir  lying  in  ruins  (Zech.  2:5-9).  About  seventy  years 
later,  in  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  I  (probably;  see  below),  a 
singular  turn  of  events  brought  about  the  restoring  of  this  wall. 
The  story  of  Nehemiah  is  a  strange  one;  but  in  such  an  environ- 
ment as  the  Persian  court  truth  is  often  stranger  than  fiction. 
We  have  at  present  no  reason  to  reject  the  account  given  us  by 
the  book  of  Nehemiah  in  its  original  form.^' 

VII.       THE    religious    DEVELOPMENT 

During  all  this  time,  while  Israel's  external  prosperity  was 
being  restored,  a  most  significant  development  of  the  spiritual 
life  of  the  people  was  taking  place;  a  development  which  had 
begun  long  ago,  and  which  was  destined  to  bring  forth  a  most 
important  part  of  the  nation's  religious  contribution  to  the  world. 
The  Jews  of  the  second  temple  were,  indeed,  a  community  broken 
in  spirit ;  but  we  may  easily  exaggerate  their  discouragement,  and 
overestimate  the  suddenness  of  the  change  in  their  circumstances. 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  bitter,  it  is  true,  than  the  expe- 
rience of  the  years  597-586;  but  the  humiliation  had  begun  before 
Nebuchadrezzar's  conquest.  The  people  had  already  been  made 
to  see  how  the  "chosen  of  Yahw6"  was  doomed  to  be  a  vassal, 
and  a  mere  cipher  among  the  nations.  Their  life  under  Persian 
governors  was  not  very  different  from  what  it  had  been  under 
their  own  powerless  and  tributary  kings,  in  the  later  years  of  the 
monarchy.  And  this,  as  has  already  been  remarked,  was  only  a 
part,  and  the  less  important  part,  of  their  humiliation.  The  dis- 
integration and  scattering  of  Israel  meant  more  than  any  merely 
temporary  reverses.  The  loss  of  four  or  five  thousand  of  their 
best  men  by  deportation  was  not  a  vital  matter,  nor  was  the  burn- 
ing of  the  temple.  Vacant  places  can  be  filled  in  a  surprisingly 
short  time,  and  temples  can  be  rebuilt.  But  the  breaking  up 
of    the    nation   which    bore    the   name   of  Abraham,   and 

36  The  latest  date  given  in  Zechariah  is  the  fourth  year  of  Darius  (7:1),  and  it  docs  not 
appear  tliat  the  temple  was  finished  at  that  time,  so  far  as  wo  can  judge  from  the  lack  of 
any  mention  of  the  fact  in  Zech.  7  and  8. 

37  That  is,  substantially,  chaps.  1,  2,  and  4-6.  Some  bits  in  thesechapters  also,  however, 
are  from  the  hand  of  the  Chronich^r,  and  the  task  of  recognizing  them  is  one  of  some  impor- 
tance and  considerable  difficulty.  I  am  far  from  supposing  that  I  have  said  the  last  word 
in  my  own  suggestions  regarding  tlie  analysis  (above,  pp.  22.")  f.). 


308  Ezra  Studies 

had  received  the  splendid  promises,  all  of  which  seemed 
to  attach  themselves  to  the  holy  land,  apparently 
meant  the  loss  of  the  whole  inheritance.  How  could  this 
people  come  into  possession  of  the  blessings  assured  by  Yahw6, 
when  it  was  divided  among  the  four  corners  of  the  earth  ?  How 
could  it  ever  be  the  leader  among  the  nations,  when  the  part  of  it 
which  still  held  to  the  soil  of  Palestine  was,  and  to  all  appearance 
must  ever  be,  in  this  present  age,  a  mere  "remnant?"  As  has 
already  been  said,  the  vast  majority  of  the  "exiles"  did  not  return 
to  the  home-land.  Why  should  they  have  done  so,  even  if  it  had 
been  possible?  They  knew  that  they  could  make  better  use  of 
their  powers,  and  better  serve  the  world,  in  the  countries  to  which 
they  had  emigrated.  Their  attitude  was  a  matter  of  course, 
from  the  beginning;  but  what  was  more  important  was  the  attitude 
of  those  who  remained  behind  in  Palestine,  the  custo- 
dians of  the  temple,  the  true  nucleus  of  Israel,  those  who  wrote 
and  preserved  for  us  the  later  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  At 
first,  no  doubt,  they  used  every  effort  to  stem  the  tide,  and  even 
may  have  denounced  their  brethren  as  deserters;  but  the  utter 
fruitlessness  of  all  such  efforts  must  soon  have  become  apparent. 
As  reasonable  beings,  they  could  only  understand  and  acquiesce ; 
and  as  interpreters  of  the  faith  of  the  fathers  it  was  theirs  to  see 
whatever  light  they  could  in  the  rapidly  darkening  outlook.  We 
see,  in  the  documents  which  have  survived,  no  censure  of  the 
emigrating  Hebrews,  only  lament  for  the  bitter  necessity  which 
drove  them  out  of  the  land.^**  They  are  always  spoken  of  as 
"exiles"  and  as  "driven  out,"  banished  and  held  captive  against 
their  will.  And  this,  under  the  circumstances,  was  the  only  just 
view.  Those  who  went  forth  were  indeed  loyal  Jews,  and  they 
did  go  under  a  real  compulsion.  Those  who  remained  at  home 
would  never  have  counseled  the  wanderers  to  return;  in  fact,  they 
could  hardly  even  have  wished  them  to  do  so.  To  what  should 
they  return?  The  land  was  not  able  to  support  them  all,  nor  was 
it  desirable  that  the  Jews  who  could  do  something  better  should 
be  limited  to  tilling  the  poor  soil  and  carrying  on  the  few  and 
inferior  native  industries.  As  for  the  multitude  of  abandoned 
farms,  they  were  speedily  taken  up  by  men  of  another  sort.      In 

3H  The  writer  of  Jer.  42  looked  upon  tlie  fugitives  to  Egypt  after  tiio  assassination  of 
Gedaliah  as  deserving  especial  rebuke  for  their  desertion  of  the  land  at  this  (in  his  view) 
most  critical  juncture.  But  tliis  is  an  altogether  unique  case,  having  nothing  to  do  with 
any  censure  of  the  emigrants  in  general. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  309 

this  particular,  also,  the  history  of  that  movement  in  Judea  has 
been  repeated  many  times  in  our  own  day;  foreigners  of  a  lower 
grade  of  civilization,  men  of  few  needs  and  great  physical  endur- 
ance, are  always  ready  to  step  in  where  the  way  is  thus  opened. 
First  Edomites,  pressing  in  from  the  south,  then  other  peoples 
from  across  the  Jordan  and  from  Philistia,  and  afterward  swarms 
of  Nabatean  peasants,  entered  the  districts  which  the  Jews  were 
vacating.^"  This,  again,  was  a  change  which  was  most  painful  to 
the  devout  Hebrews.  The  God  of  their  fathers  had  promised  the 
land  to  them;  why  then  were  foreigners  permitted  to  pour  in  and 
occupy  it?  The  words  of  Joel  4:176  are  typical:  "Then  Jeru- 
salem shall  be  holy,  and  strangers  shall  not  pass  through 
it  any  longer."  But  it  was  as  obvious  that  the  newcomers 
came  to  stay  as  it  was  that  the  outgoing  population  went  to  return 
no  more.  And,  looking  calmly  at  the  conditions  which  had  come 
to  be,  it  is  not  likely  that  any  wise  patriot  in  Jerusalem  would 
have  checked  the  one  movement  or  the  other,  if  he  could  have 
done  so.  These  were  only  single  incidents  in  the  great  plan  of 
Yahw6,  who  was  chastising  his  people  and  yet  preparing  some 
good  thing  for  them  in  the  end.  Thus  the  Second  Isaiah 
(42:22  ff.)  :*"  "'But'  (ye  cry)  'it  is  a  people  robbed  and  plundered, 
all  of  them  trapped  in  holes  and  hidden  away  in  dungeons;  they 
have  become  a  prey,  with  none  to  rescue;  a  spoil,  with  none  to 
say:  Restore  it!'  O  that  some  one  of  you  would  hear  this;  would 
hearken,  and  make  it  known  for  the  future.  Who  gave  Jacob  to 
the  spoiler,  and  Israel  to  those  who  plundered?  Was  it  not 
Yahw6.  against  whom  they  had  sinned,  in  whose  ways  they  would 
not  walk,  and  whose  law  they  would  not  hear?"  And  again,  in 
48:91f. :  "For  my  name's  sake  I  will  hold  back  mine  anger;  for 
the  sake  of  my  praise  I  will  spare  thee,  not  cutting  thc^  otf.  Lo 
I  have  purified  thee  for  myself  like  silver,  I  have  tried  thee  in  the 
furnace  of  affliction.  For  my  sake,  mine  own  sake.  I  will  do  it; 
for  how  shall  my  name  be  profaned?  and  my  glory  I  give  to  no 
other."  If  this  was  the  prevailing  spirit  among  the  religious 
leaders  in  Jerusalem  —  and  it  assuredly  was,  as  we  know  from  the 
Old  Testament  and  especially  from  the  Psalms — then  it  must,  a 
fortiori^  have  held  sway  everywhere  in  the  Diaspora.     No  Jew  in 

39  Aside  from  this  moro  gradual  immigration,  there  seems  also  to  have  beon  a  sudden 
pouring  in  of  Edomites  just  after  Nebuchadrezzar's  campaign. 

ii'As  will  appear,  I  have  made  one  or  two  slight  and  obvious  emendations  in  the  text  of 
the  passages  quotefl. 


310  Ezra  Studies 

Babylonia,  for  instance,  could  ever  have  thought  of  advising  the 
colonists  there  to  return;  nor  would  any  member  of  the  presum- 
ably still  larger  gola  in  Egypt  have  counseled  his  countrymen  to 
make  their  way  back  to  Palestine,  though  they  might  perhaps 
have  found  it  possible  to  do  so.  All  the  faithful,  of  whatever 
land,  dreamed  of  a  great  home-gathering,  hut  not  in  this  present 
age;  the  day  when  the  exiles  were  to  return  to  Zion  was  the  day 
when  all  evils,  for  man  or  beast,  should  be  forever  done  away 
(Is.  11:1-16,  60:16-22,  65:25,  66:19  f.).  But  obviously  no  one 
could  hasten  the  glorious  time  by  bringing  the  lion  straw  to  eat, 
or  by  forcing  the  leopard  and  the  lamb  to  lie  down  together. 

The  Jews  have  always  been  a  people  of  strong  faith,  but  they 
had  before  them  at  this  time  such  a  problem  in  theodicy  as  no 
other  people  has  ever  faced.  It  was  quite  impossible  that  they — 
the  best  part  of  them — should  doubt  that  they  had  really  been 
called  and  led  by  Yahw6,  and  that  he  was  able  to  carry  out  his 
purpose  for  them.  The  question  was  simply,  what  his  plan  was, 
and  how  he  intended  to  work  it  out.  The  new  and  very  disheart- 
ening conditions  made  necessary  a  new  development  of  Jewish 
theology.     How  well  fitted  were  they  for  such  a  task? 

If  the  modern  view  of  the  external  history  of  the  Jewish  res- 
toration is  thoroughly  mistaken,  that  of  the  religious  tone  and 
temper  of  the  people  of  the  second  temple  is  even  more  so.  Had 
the  men  of  Jerusalem  in  the  Persian  period  really  been  such  as 
our  text-books  represent  them, — dispirited  particularists ;  un- 
friendly to  everything  lying  outside  the  pale  of  Jewish  orthodoxy, 
and  with  ceremonial  piety  as  their  ideal  of  personal  righteousness; 
with  their  faces  toward  the  past  rather  than  the  future,  and  unable 
to  take  a  broad  view  of  their  situation, — then  they  would,  indeed, 
have  been  incapable  of  any  adequate  solution  of  their  great  prob- 
lem. But  they  were  by  no  means  such  men  as  this;  the  current 
characterization  of  them  is  a  false  one.  Here,  also,  the  source  of 
the  error  lies  in  a  wrong  estimate  of  the  writings  of  the  Chronicler; 
the  mistake  of  supposing  him  to  be  a  trustworthy  historian,  instead 
of  an  apologist  setting  forth  a  one-sided  theory.  At  the  time  when 
the  great  battle  of  modern  Biblical  scholarship  was  fought  and 
won,  establishing  the  fact  that  the  "priestly"  strata  of  the  early 
Hebrew  narratives,  and  of  the  legislation  of  the  Pentateuch,  were 
of  relatively  late  date,  pretty  nearly  the  whole  body  of  what  was 
recognized   as  "post-exilic"  literature  (aside    from   the   poetical 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  311 

books)  consisted  of  writings  which  either  were  written  or  redacted 
by  professional  priests,  or  else  came  from  the  Chronicler's 
hand  (viz.  Chronicles,  Ezra,  and  all  the  narrow- Judaistic  part  of 
Nehemiah).  Hence  these  were  of  necessity  regarded  as  the  char- 
acteristic products  of  the  period,  and  upon  them  was  built,  forth- 
with, a  theory  of  the  "j)Ost-exilic  religion"  of  Israel.  At  the 
present  day,  we  know  that  the  most  of  the  proplietical  literature 
contained  in  our  Old  Testament,  including  the  deepest  and  most 
wide-hearted  expressions  of  the  Hebrew  faith  which  exist,  dates 
from  the  Persian  period.  This  was  the  golden  age  of  Hebrew 
prophecy,  as  it  was  also  that  of  Hebrew  poetry.  Nevertheless  the 
outgrown  and  unjust  theory  persists,  and  the  dogma  of  "the  peo- 
ple given  over  to  formalism"  is  one  which  no  one  questions.  The 
faithful  community  in  Jerusalem  and  Judea  is  pictured  as  a 
"church"  of  a  narrow  and  ever  narrowing  type,  busied  with  small 
and  uninspiring  matters.  Even  the  noblest  utterances  of  psalm- 
ist and  "post-exilic"  prophet  are  given  a  petty  interpretation;  so 
that  instead  of  reaching  the  utmost  horizon,  as  by  their  own  word- 
ing they  seem  to  do,  they  are  made  to  cover  only  the  smallest  and 
unworthiest  patch  of  human  life  and  interest." 

If  there  were  any  facts  tending  to  show  that  the  Jews  of  Per- 
sian Palestine  were  really  such  a  caricature  of  religious  humanity 
as  the  "post-exilic"  theory  depicts  them,  then  the  honest  investi- 
gator would  of  necessity  drop  all  considerations  of  probability  and 
lay  hold  of  these  facts,  endeavoring  to  interpret  them  fairly.  But 
there  is,  on  the  contrary,  nothing  tending  to  show  that  Israelite 
theology  in  the  Persian  period  (speaking  of  the  people  in  gen- 
eral) was  more  legalistic  than  it  had  been  in  the  latter  days  of  the 
kingdom;  while  there  is  very  much  to  show  that  the  general 
tendency  had  been,  and  was,  toward  liberality.  This  was,  in  a 
certain  sense,  a  "legal"  period.  The  ritual  law  had  been  steadily 
growing  until  it  had  reached  an  unwieldy  size,  and  this  was  the 
time  for  its  codification  and  revision,  especially  now  that  rival 
sanctuaries,  with  rival  rituals,  were  becoming  dangerous.  The 
priests  were  more  thoroughly  organized  than  they  had  been  before, 
and  were  developing  a  considerable  literary  activity,  as  we  have 

*'  For  full  illustration  of  this  statement  I  would  refer  to  any  recent  commentary  on  the 
Psalms,  espoclHlly  that  of  Uuhm  ;  or  to  the  modern  interpretation  of  any  •'post-exilic" 
propliet,  especially  the  Second  Isaiah.  Professor  Clieyno's  little  volume,  ''Jetvish  Religious 
Life  after  the  Exile"  sets  forth  quite  fully,  and  with  groat  learning  and  skill,  the  modern 
view;  but  sucli  a  religious  society  as  he  depicts  could  probably  never  have  existed  any- 
where, and  certainly  never  did  exist  la  Palestine. 


312  Ezra  Studies 

abundant  evidence.  But  these  few  priests  were  not  the  whole 
people,  and  the  fact  that  they  had  written  or  edited  a  considerable 
number  of  the  documents  which  (thanks  to  their  care)  have  sur- 
vived to  the  present  day  can  give  us  no  clue  whatever  as  to  the 
religious  tendencies  of  the  laity.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  time  of  many 
widely  differing  tendencies.  The  new  and  strange  conditions,  at 
home  and  abroad,  the  rapid  influx  of  foreign  ideas,  and  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  nation,  all  brought  forth  extreme  types  of  religion, 
conservative  on  the  one  hand  and  radical  on  the  other.  There 
were  scribes  who  were  absorbed,  as  never  before,  in  legal  minu- 
tiae; there  were  narrow-hearted  nationalists;  and  there  were 
apologists  who,  like  the  Chronicler,  were  compelled  by  their  own 
argument  to  present  a  distorted  view,  whether  they  would  have 
preferred  it  or  not.  On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  strong 
tendency  toward  ultra-liberalism,  going  to  the  extent  of  giving  up 
all  that  was  characteristic  of  the  Jewish  faith.  There  were  even 
many,  from  the  better  part  of  the  people,  who  adopted  outright 
the  crude  and  often  very  revolting  forms  of  the  pagan  worship 
which  they  saw  in  the  land;  as  is  made  evident  by  the  tremen- 
dous invectives  in  Is.  57  and  65  f.,  as  well  as  by  the  milder  yet 
severely  ironical  polemic  against  idolatry  in  chaps.  40  f.,  44,  etc. 
But  the  great  majority  of  the  people  stood  at  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other  extreme.  So  far  as  "the  law"  was  concerned,  the  hints 
given  us  by  the  Chronicler  indicate  that  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
people  paid  not  over  much  attention  to  it.  Judging  from  the 
prophecy  of  Malachi — who  was  himself  one  of  the  most  liberal- 
minded  of  men — even  the  priests  were  prone  to  neglect  it.  From 
passage  after  passage  in  the  prophets  and  the  Psalter  we  can  see 
that  the  true  sentiment  of  the  people  was  against  ritualism ;  that 
their  religious  life  was  based  on  the  spirit  rather  than  the  letter, 
and  could  combine  the  new  with  the  old.  There  were  multitudes 
(judging  from  the  literature  which  we  have)  whose  view 
was  broad  and  sane,  and  who  were  in  all  respects  worthy  heirs  of 
the  teaching  of  their  leaders  and  representatives,  the  prophets. 
Israel's  inheritance  from  the  past  was  a  great  one,  not  a  small  one, 
and  it  was  a  possession  of  which  they  could  and  did  make  use.  It 
has  been  customary  to  think  of  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament 
as  isolated  phenomena;  men  speaking  words  put  into  their  mouth 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  heeded  by  none  of  those  who  heard 
(Matt.  13:14f.).     On  the  contrary,  these  great  teachers  were  all 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  313 

men  of  the  people.  By  seeing  what  they  were,  we  can  see  what 
the  people  were.  Every  prophet  of  Israel  was  the  true  product, 
and  the  best  product,  of  his  own  day,  the  leader  into  a  better  time 
which  his  voice  and  his  example  helped  to  bring  near,  but  which 
could  not  come  without  the  added  help  of  the  many.  When  Amos, 
Hosea,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  all  their  fellows,  had  passed  away, 
their  work  was  not  merely  stored  up  in  written  books  and  laid 
away  at  one  side,  as  it  were;  it  was  living  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  As  I  have  already  said,  above,  the  religious  life  of 
Jerusalem  and  Judea  went  on  from  the  period  of  the  monarchy 
over  into  that  of  the  foreign  dominion  in  one  continuous  line  of 
development. 

The  Jews  of  the  Persian  and  Greek  periods  did  work  out  a 
solution  worthy  of  their  past  and  adequate  to  the  demand  of  the 
time.  It  is  impossible  to  go  into  details  here,  only  the  bare  facts 
can  be  stated.  They  accepted  the  distress  and  the  humiliation  as 
deserved  punishment.  No  people  possessed  of  a  genuine  religious 
spirit,  and  accustomed  to  the  idea  of  a  special  divine  guidance, 
could  fail  to  look  for  a  benevolent  purpose  in  all  this  discipline; 
and  the  Jews  made  their  way,  by  degrees,  into  a  new  and  wider 
view  of  their  life  as  the  chosen  few,  all  the  way  from  Abraham  on 
to  the  coming  age.  They  saw,  and  welcomed,  what  was  good  in 
the  religious  beliefs  of  the  Gentiles.  The  sacrifices  and  rites 
which  had  been  ordained  for  the  Hebrews  were  the  best  for  them, 
beyond  question,  but  were  not  necessary  for  other  peoples.  Even 
for  the  Israelites  themselves,  the  ceremonial  law  was  not  the 
essential  thing;  psalmist  after  psalmist  and  prophet  after  prophet 
express  clearly  their  conviction — which  was  certainly  the  convic- 
tion of  the  people  as  a  whole — -that  what  Yahw^  wishes  of  his 
children  is  not  burnt  offering  and  punctilious  observance,  but 
clean  hands  and  a  pure  heart,  loyal  affection  to  the  God  who  had 
chosen  them,  and  good  will  toward  all  their  brethren.*' 

As  for  the  Gentiles,  the   prophet    Malachi   says  in  the    most 

*2  We  find  in  tho  Psalter,  as  nowhere  else,  the  true  religion  of  the  Jews  of  the  second 
temple.  However  strongly  subjective  many  of  these  poems  are,  they  certainly  speak,  in  the 
main,  for  tho  multitude,  the  common  people  who  made  up  the  great  majority  of  Israel. 
HencK  the  deepest  significance  of  the  fact  that  we  find,  all  through  the  collection,  a  faith 
which  is  warm-hearted  and  catholic,  and  founded  on  practical  common  sense.  It  is  true 
that  one  and  another  of  these  poets  speak  despairingly  of  "the  righteous /cm;,"  but  such 
phrases  are  only  the  expressions  of  a  mood.  In  the  great  majority  of  tlie  pi 'ems  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  multitude,  not  indeed  righteous,  but  at  least  hungering  for  righteous- 
ness, is  evident  enough.  But  so  long  as  tho  Psalms  are  understood  as  the  utterances  of 
men  akin  in  spirit  to  the  leaders  of  the  congregation  pictured  by  the  Chronicler,  just  so  long 
will  tliey  continue  to  be  cruelly  misinterpreted. 


314  Ezra  Studies 

unequivocal  terms  (1:11),  that  all  the  worship  which  they  offer 
sincerely  is  accepted  by  Yahw6  as  offered  to  him.  In  the  afflic- 
tion of  the  Dispersion,  these  teachers  of  the  restored  community 
were  quick  to  see  a  new  opportunity.  Israel  was  destined  to 
bring  the  nations  to  Yahw6.  Even  in  its  suffering,  to  the  point 
of  death,  it  was  fulfilling  the  divine  mission,  hastening  to  comple- 
tion its  work  as  the  faithful  "Servant."  Indeed,  these  very  suf- 
ferings were  by  God's  plan  made  to  be  an  atonement  for  the  sin 
of  the  Gentiles.  It  is  worthy  of  especial  notice,  as  a  striking 
illustration  of  the  range  of  this  religious  sympathy,  as  wide  as  the 
human  race,  how  the  Second  Isaiah,  in  picturing  the  return  of  the 
"exiles"  from  all  parts  of  the  earth,  represents  the  Gentiles 
as  coming  home  with  them.  See  Is.  49:8  ff.,  where  the  com- 
parison of  the  parallel  passage,  -42:6  f.,  shows  conclusively  that 
those  who  are  "bound"  and  "in  darkness"  are  not  only  Jews  but 
also  Gentiles,  to  whom  Israel  has  been  appointed  to  give  light 
(Q^lr»  lisb).  Yahw6  leads  these  foreign  flocks  also  as  their  own 
"good  shepherd,"  the  phrases  used  here  being  just  like  those  em- 
ployed in  40:11,  41:18,  43:19-21,  etc.  It  is  not  to  be  doubted 
that  also  in  such  passages  as  61:1  ff.,  where  the  "Servant"  is 
appointed  to 'open  the  blind  eyes  and  heal  the  broken  hearts,  the 
writer's  thought  included  the  whole  world,  though  with  primary 
reference  (of  course)  to  Israel.  Yahw^'s  "day  of  punishment" 
(Dp]  DV,  vs.  2)  is  for  all  the  guilty,  Jews  and  Gentiles  alike;  and 
his  comfort,  in  like  manner,  is  for  all."  Compare  with  this  Is. 
25:8,  where  the  God  of  Israel  wipes  away  the  tears  "from  all 
faces."  See  also  such  passages  as  2:2-4,  19:24  f.,  66:18,  21; 
Ps.  65:3,  145:14-18,  146:7  f.  These  are  only  a  few  passages, 
among  those  which  could  be  named,  but  they  are  a  splendid  array ! 

*3  In  the  dlioan,  or  collected  poems,  of  the  Second  Isaiah,  two  groat  themes  are 
esp'cially  prominent.  The  one  is  the  meaningof  Israel's  history,  and  the  other 
is  the  return  home  in  the  Messianic  time.  In  working  out  his  philosophy  of 
the  nation's  history,  the  great  poet  appeals  constantly  to  the  call  of  Abraham  (41 : 2,  etc.  In 
46:11,  instead  of  tjiy  we  must  read  1~ny  '"my  servant,"  parallel  to  "^PSy  TCS  "the 
man  of  my  counsel")  and  to  the  returu  from  Egypt  (4:3: 16  f.,  18:21,  etc.)  but  rests  his  whole 
scheme  on  the  very  broadest  and  truest  conceptions  of  human  life  and  the  divine  dealing. 
In  picturing  tlie  home-gathering,  his  world-wide  sympathy  is  all  the  time  making  itself 
apparent.  He  gives  Israel  the  foremost  place  in  tln^  blessed  ago  to  come  (how  could  h  ■  do 
otherwise'?),  but  never  forgets  the  blessings  destined  for  the  heathen,  including  many  even 
from  tliose  nations  which  have  been  Zion's  worst  enemies.  In  every  people  thi-re  arc  chil- 
dren of  Yahw6;  he  must  visit  a  terrible  punishment  upon  tbeguilty  (and  thegnilty  of  Israel 
aro  included),  but  the  rigliteous,  of  whatever  race,  will  be  saved.  The  world's  literature 
contains  nothing  which  can  surpass  the  poems  of  this  great  soul  — the  prophet  of  the  Dis- 
persion, as  he  might  be  styled  —  wlio  first  recognized  fully  tiic  meaning  of  "the  ch(is(!n 
people"  and  gave  it  an  expression  which  will  stand  as  true  for  all  time,  and  wlio  first 
sketclied  clearly  and  firmly  the  figure  of  a  personal  Messiah. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  315 

VIII.       JEWISH    temples    OF    THE    DISPERSION 

Thus  far,  we  have  considered  the  manner  of  the  restoration, 
and  the  material  and  religious  condition  of  the  revived  com- 
munity. We  have  also  seen  that  the  attitude  of  the  Jews  of 
Judea  toward  those  of  the  Dispersion  was  one  of  cordial  good 
will  and  atfection,  like  that  of  the  mother  who  sees  her  son  go 
away  from  home  to  enter  upon  his  career.  It  remains  to  ask, 
however,  how  jealous  the  Palestinian  Jews  were  of  their  own 
temple,  in  opposition  to  Jewish  temples  built  for  the  worship  of 
Yahw6  in  foreign  lands.  Until  very  recently,  this  question  would 
hardly  have  received  serious  consideration.  Now,  however,  the 
papyri  from  Elephantine  have  opened  our  eyes.  There,  in  the 
heart  of  Upper  Egypt,  in  the  sixth  and  fifth  centuries  b.  c,  stood 
a  notable  sanctuary,  to  the  history  of  which  I  have  already  alluded. 
The  members  of  the  Jewish  colony  at  Yeb  were  not  only  worship- 
ingf  the  God  of  their  fathers  there,  down  to  the  year  411,  with  all 
due  ceremony  and  in  perfect  sincerity;  but  when  the  temple  was 
destroyed  by  their  enemies,  they  sent  a  petition  for  help  to 
their  brethren  in  Judea.  Those  scholars  who  have  discussed 
the  questions  raised  by  these  papyri  have  all,  with  one  voice, 
pronounced  the  Jews  of  this  Upper  Egyptian  colony  schismatic, 
and  their  temple  an  eyesore  to  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem.  We  know, 
from  the  papyrus  letter,  that  the  petitioners  did  not  receive 
any  help  from  their  Judean  fellow-countrymen,  in 
answer  to  their  request.  All  commentators  explain  this 
fact  as  due  to  the  hostility  which  the  adherents  of  the  temple  in 
Jerusalem  must  have  felt  toward  the  schismatic  church  in  Egypt 
(an  unjustified  explanation,  as  will  presently  appear).  ''How 
could  the  orthodox  in  Judea,"  it  is  said,  "give  aid  to  a  temple  on 
foreign  soil,  when  it  is  declared  with  the  greatest  emphasis  in 
Deuteronomy  that  Jerusalem  is  the  only  legitimate  place  for  the 
worship  of  Yahw6V"  Such  a  sanctuary,  according  to  the  accepted 
view,  must  have  been  looked  upon  as  an  evil  thing,  by  all  the 
faithful  and  zealous  who  knew  the  law.  One  eminent  scholar, 
speaking  of  the  temple  at  Elephantine  soon  after  the  fact  of  its 
existence  was  discovered,  said:  "This  was  enough  to  make,  per- 
haps actually  did  make,  Jeremiah  howl."  But  were  the  people 
of  Judea  in  the  time  of  the  second  temple  really  so  very  narrow, 
and  so   very  unreasonable,  as    this?     Was    Jeremiah  so    small- 


316  Ezra  Studies 

souled  a  man  as  this  estimate  would  make  him  ?  On  the  contrary, 
we  have  no  good  ground  for  supposing  that  the  laws  in  question 
had  any  reference  to  sanctuaries  outside  of  the  holy  land. 
More  than  one  Old  Testament  scholar,  writing  before  the  dis- 
covery of  the  letters  from  the  colony  at  Yeb,  had  expressed  the 
opinion  that  the  ordinances  in  Deut.  12,  forbidding  worship  at 
sanctuaries  other  than  the  one  in  Jerusalem,  were  intended  to 
refer  only  to  Palestine.  This  is  certainly  the  correct  view. 
The  laws  in  question  were  framed  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining 
the  primacy  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  in  the  face  of  the 
growing  importance  of  Hebrew  sanctuaries  elsewhere  in  the  land. 
So  long  as  the  shrine  on  Mount  Moriah  continued  to  stand, 
there  could  never  be  the  least  question  as  to  its  superior  sanctity 
in  comparison  with  all  shrines  on  foreign  soil.  So  long  as  Jews 
remained  Jews,  and  "called  themselves  by  the  name"  of  Abraham 
and  Jacob,  their  loyalty  must  attach  itself  to  Palestine.  But 
Abraham  and  Jacob  had  other  famous  shrines  in  the  home-land, 
some  of  which  might  easily  dispute  the  first  place  with  Jerusalem. 
We  may  be  sure  that  from  the  time  when  these  "Deuteronomic" 
commands  came  into  circulation,  their  purpose  was  well  under- 
stood in  the  Dispersion,  and  also,  that  they  were  generally 
approved.  Jerusalem  was,  in  fact,  accepted  as  the  one  primary 
seat  of  worship  by  all  the  Jews  in  the  home-land,  excepting  those 
who  attached  themselves  to  Shechem  and  Mount  Gerizim,  of 
whom  more  will  be  said  presently.  Those  who  went  abroad  into 
the  foreign  lands,  therefore,  must  have  continued  to  give  due 
glory  to  the  mother  sanctuary  and  uphold  its  prestige,  while  (of 
course)  maintaining  the  right  to  build  their  own  local  houses  of 
sacrifice  and  worship.  There  were  large  Jewish  colonies  in  the  great 
Gentile  cities;  it  would  be  preposterous  to  expect  them  to  give 
up  their  worship,  or  to  limit  it  to  pilgrimages  (!)  to  the  mother- 
country.  Within  the  small  territory  of  Palestine,  the  journey  to 
the  central  shrine  might  be  made  a  requirement,  but  not  so  in 
Babylonia,  Egypt,  and  the  isles  of  the  sea.  We  see  plainly  from 
the  papyri  of  Yeb  that  the  members  of  the  Jewish  church  there 
had  no  idea  that  they  were  doing  anything  irregular,  or  that  could 
be  displeasing  to  their  brethren  in  Judea.  Inasmuch  as  their 
sanctuary  had  been  standing  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  at 
the  time  when  their  letter  was  written,  it  can  be  put  down  as 
certain  that,  if  they  had  been  deemed  schismatic  by  the  home 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  317 

church,  they  would  have  known  it  long  ago.  There  were  similar 
religious  conditions  in  other  similar  colonies,  and  it  may  well  be 
that  we  shall  discover,  some  day,  that  in  Babylonia  and  else- 
where there  were  flourishing  Jewish  temples,  in  which  sacrifice 
to  Yahw6  was  offered  in  the  time-honored  way.  And  of  this  we 
may  be  certain,  that  the  best  representatives  of  Palestinian  Judaism 
would  all,  to  a  man,  have  hailed  with  genuine  enthusiasm  the 
building  of  all  such  houses  of  worship  for  their  "exiled"  brethren. 
We  have  in  addition  to  the  Elephantine  documents  two  or 
three  other  bits  of  information  as  to  the  loyalty  to  the  temple  at 
Jerusalem  shown  in  the  Dispersion,  and  as  to  the  friendliness  of 
the  Jews  of  Judea  toward  the  members  of  a  colonial  church.  The 
first  of  these  is  the  account  given  by  Josephus  {Antt.  xiii,  3,  4) 
of  a  public  contest  between  the  Jews  and  the  Samaritans  in  Egypt 
in  the  time  of  Ptolemy  Philometor,  the  question  at  issue  being 
this,  whether  in  the  law  of  Moses  the  preferred  sanctuary  is  at 
Jerusalem  or  on  Mount  Gerizim.  According  to  the  narrative,  the 
Jews  on  this  occasion  showed  great  zeal  for  the  honor  of  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem.  Whatever  degree  of  credence  we  give  to 
the  account,  it  is  at  least  obvious  that  the  one  who  first  composed 
it  believed  that  the  Egyptian  Jews  would  all  have  shown  such 
zeal  as  this.  Much  more  important  is  the  testimony  given  by  the 
two  letters  prefixed  to  the  book  of  II  Maccabees."  The 
first  of  these,  1:1-9  {not  vss.  1-lOa,  as  Swete's  edition  and  all 
the  recent  textbooks  and  translations  have  it!)  is  sent  by  the 
Jews  of  Judea  to  their  fellows  in  Egypt  to  urge  them  to  observe 
the  feast  of  the  re-dedication  of  the  temple,  and  is  dated  in  the 
year  169  (143  B.C.)  I  do  not  see  how  its  genuineness  can  be 
doubted.  It  attests  both  the  fraternal  co-operation  existing  at 
that  time  between  the  two  religious  communities,  and  also  the 
fact  that  the  superiority  of  the  sanctuary  in  Jerusalem  was  taken 
as  a  matter  of  course  on  both  sides.  In  view  of  the  paucity  of 
material  of  this  sort,  it  is  an  extremely  valuable  document.  The 
second  of  the  two  letters,  which  I  also  believe  to  be  genuine,  is 
dated  in  the  year  188  (124  B.C.).  It  bears  the  same  witness  as 
the  other,  while  the  manner  in  which  it  goes  into  detail,  in  giving 
the  ground  for  their  mutual  rejoicing,  makes  the  fact  of  long 
continued  and  traditional  good  feeling  all  the  more  certain.     It 

«*I  liave  discussed  thesu  lettors  at  li'iisth  in  the  ZdlM-hrlft  fur  die  (tltfcst'imentliche 
Wisscnschaft,  XX  (1900),  ppv  225-12,  and  refer,  for  details,  to  that  place. 


318  Ezra  Studies 

is  quite  generally  taken  for  granted  that  the  adherents  of  the 
temple  at  Leontopolis  were  always  looked  upon  as  rivals  and  oppo- 
nents of  the  Palestinian  Jews,  but  this  is  surely  an  error.  Rivalry 
or  enmity  on  occasional  grounds  is  of  course  always  and  every- 
where possible;  the  circumstances  of  the  founding  of  a  new 
sanctuary,  for  instance,  might  be  the  cause  of  bad  feeling,  even 
long  continued.  Such  rivalry  and  hostility  have  not  infrequently 
attended  the  founding  of  new  Christian  churches,  it  must  be 
admitted.  But  that  the  Jews  of  Judea  ever  opposed  the  temple 
at  Leontopolis,  or  similar  Jewish  temples  in  any  other  part  of  the 
Gentile  world,  on  the  ground  of  infringement  of  the  Deu- 
teronomic  law,  I  do  not  believe  for  a  moment. 

As  for  the  failure  of  the  church  in  Judea  to  give  the  much- 
needed  aid  to  the  daughter-church  in  Upper  Egypt,  in  the  year 
411:  we  are  now  able  to  connect  this  fact  with  a  very  important 
and  interesting  historical  event,  which  has  only  recently  been 
illuminated  for  us  by  these  very  same  papyrus  records.  Josephus, 
Antt.  xi,  7,  tells  the  following  story.  When  the  high  priest 
Eliashib  died,  his  son  Judah  succeeded  him;  then,  when  the 
latter  died,  he  in  tui-n  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Johanan  ('Iwai/- 
v?;?).  It  was  because  of  a  deed  of  this  Johanan  that  the  Persian 
Bagoses  ['Baycoa-rj'i),  who  was  the  officer  [arpar-qyo'i)  of  Artaxerxes 
Mnemon,  defiled  the  temple  and  imposed  a  tax  on  the  Jews.  It 
happened  in  this  wise.  The  high  priest  Johanan  had  a  brother 
named  Jeshua  ('It^o-oO?).  Bagoses,  who  was  a  friend  of  the  latter, 
promised  to  bring  it  about  that  he,  instead  of  his  brother,  should 
be  high  priest.  Johanan  quarreled  with  his  brother  in  the 
temple,  and  the  quarrel  ended  in  the  death  of  Jeshua.  Bagoses, 
vowing  vengeance,  not  only  defiled  the  temple  by  entering  the 
most  holy  place,  but  also  fined  the  Jews  thenceforward  for  seven 
years,  taxing  them  before  the  daily  sacrifice  fifty  drachmas  for 
each  lamb.  Thus  far  Josephus.  It  has  been  customary  to  iden- 
tify this  Persian  officer  with  the  Bagoas  who  held  such  an 
important  place  at  the  court  under  Artaxerxes  III  Ochus;  and 
our  historians  have  accordingly  supposed  a  punitive  expedition  of 
a  Persian  army  to  Jerusalem.  Possibly  Josephus  himself  made 
this  identification,  though  his  use  of  the  term  arpaTTjyo^  is  not 
sufficient  evidence  of  the  fact.  But  now,  at  last,  we  know  that 
the  Bagoas  (Bagoses)  of  Josephus'  story  was  a  very  difPerent 
person  from  the  grand- vizier  who  made  and  unmade  kings.    When 


The  Exile  and  the  Kestoration  319 

the  letter  from  the  Jews  at  Yeb  was  written  in  the  year  •411, 
Johanan  was  the  high  priest  in  Jerusalem;  and  the  Persian 
governor  of  Judea,  presumably  resident  in  Jerusalem,  was 
named  TIIj^  ,  i.  e.,  Bagoas  or  Bagoses.  This  is  the  man,  beyond 
all  question,  who  is  intended  in  the  narrative  preserved  by 
Josephus;  and  we  are  now  for  the  first  time  in  a  position  to 
understand  the  account,  and  also,  to  see  why  the  request  of 
the  petitioners  at  Elephantine  was  not  granted.  These 
Jews  in  Upper  Egypt  can  hardly  have  had  any  knowledge  of  the 
relation  existing  between  the  clergy  of  Jerusalem  and  their 
Persian  governor,  and  they  asked,  in  good  faith,  that  Johanan 
make  request  of  Bagoas  for  their  benefit.  But  we  can  see  that 
such  a  request  would  probably  have  been  impossible  at  any  time 
after  Johanan  had  assumed  the  office  of  high  priest.  Doubtless 
the  Jews  of  Palestine  would  very  gladly  have  assisted  their  breth- 
ren of  Upper  Egypt  if  they  had  been  able  to  do  so. 

IX,       THE    HIGH    PRIESTS    OF    THE    SECOND    TEMPLE 

We  have  already  seen  (p.  156,  top)  that  the  community  in 
Jerusalem  possessed  no  historical  tradition  or  information  relating 
to  the  first  century  of  the  Persian  period,  excepting  the  prophe- 
cies of  Haggai  and  Zechariah.  The  Chronicler's  list  of  the  high 
priests  furnishes  an  illustration  of  this  statement.  He  gives  us, 
for  the  whole  period  of  two  hundred  years  from  the  advent  of 
Cyrus  down  to  Alexander  the  Great,  a  succession  of  only  six 
names:  Jeshua,  Joiakim,  Eliashib,  Joiada,  Johanan,  Jaddua;  see 
Neh.  12: 10  f.,  22.  What  is  more,  the  succession  is  given  as 
invariably  from  father  to  son:  "Jeshua  begat  Joiakim,  Joia- 
kim begat  Eliashib,"  and  so  on  to  the  end.  The  list  is  evidently 
artificial,  and  modern  scholars  have  been  disposed  to  attach  little 
value  to  it  as  a  whole.  The  name  of  Jeshua's  father,  Jehozadak, 
was  already  given  in  Hag.  1:1  etc.,  Zech.  6:11.  The  Chronicler 
accordingly  provides  the  still  earlier  genealogy,  and  notes  in 
I  Chron.  5:41  (6:15):  "Jehozadak  went  into  captivity  when 
Yahw6  carried  away  Judah  and  Jerusalem  by  the  hand  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar;" thus  establishing  the  connection  which  was  essential 
to  his  theory. 

The  period  in  which  the  high  priest  Jaddua  lived  has  generally 
been  treated  as  a  known  starting-point,  and  with  good  reason. 
He  is  the  last  high  priest  mentioned  in  "canonical"  scripture. 


320  Ezra  Studies 

The  Chronicler,  who  names  him,  names  in  the  same  connection 
Darius  III  Codomannus  (Neh.  12:22),  thus  showing  that  he 
means  to  bring  the  high-priestly  genealogy  down  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Greek  period.  And  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  generation  which  saw  the  conquests  of  Alexander  reached 
nearly  or  quite  to  the  Chronicler's  own  day.  Moreover,  the 
source  used  by  Josephus  in  his  Antt.  xi,  8,  where  he  tells  the 
long  and  circumstantial  story  of  Sanaballat,  Manasseh,  and  the 
Samaritan  secession,  represented  Jaddua  and  Alexander. the  Great 
as  contemporaries.*'^  The  trustworthiness  of  the  Jewish  tradition 
as  to  the  date  of  the  high  priest  Jaddua  ought  therefore  to  be 
beyond  question,  especially  when  we  remember  the  Chronicler's 
supreme  interest  in  priests  and  priestly  genealogies,  and  how 
easy  it  must  have  been  for  him  to  learn  who  was  the  high  priest 
in  office  at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Darius  Codomannus,  probably 
less  than  one  hundred  years  before  the  time  when  he  wrote. 

One  other  name  in  the  list  is  also  assured,  and  the  date  certain. 
From  the  papyrus  letter  found  at  Elephantine  we  know  that  the 
high  priest  at  Jerusalem  in  the  year  411  was  Johanan.  As  has 
just  been  shown,  Josephus  has  preserved  a  story  regarding  him 
which  deserves  credence.  From  it  we  learn  that  he  had  a  brother 
named  Jeshua ;  that  the  Persian  governor  of  the  province  was  a 
friend  of  the  latter,  but  an  enemy  of  the  high  priest;  and  that 
Joshua  was  slain  by  Johanan  in  the  heat  of  a  quarrel.**'  It  was 
doubtless  because  of  the  unparalled  horror  of  this  tragedy  —  the 
murder,  by  the  high  priest,  of  his  own  brother,  in  the  temple!  — 
that  the  memory  of  it  remained  fresh,  while  every  recollection  of 
Johanan's  predecessors  was  lost.  The  indignity  of  the  special 
fine,  which  continued  for  seven  years  to  be  imposed  by  the  gover- 
nor, would  also  help  to  keep  the  name  of  this  high  priest  before 
the  people.  We  can  by  no  means  be  certain  that  his  term  of 
office  immediately  preceded  that  of  Jaddua.  One  or  more  other 
incumbents  may  have  intervened  between  the  two. 

In  Neh.   12:11  our  texts  all  read  "Jonathan"  ("n^T)  instead 

<t>  According  to  Antt.  xi,  8,  7,  the  doath  of  Jaddua  occured  after  that  of  Alexander. 

IB  From  the  fact  that  Josephus.  in  telling  this  story,  calls  Bagohi  the  "officer  of  .Vrta- 
xerxes  II"  (see  above),  it  seems  lik(>ly  that  ho  or  his  source  supposed  this  event  to  have 
taken  place  in  his  reign,  rather  than  in  that  of  Darius  II.  But  it  may  mean  only,  that 
Bagohi  (and  Johanan  as  well)  wore  ordinarily  associated  with  Artaxerxcs  II  in  tho  popular 
tradition.  The  whole  occurence  is  more  easily  imagined  as  taking  place  near  the  begin- 
ning of  Johanan's  term  of  office,  and  while  he  and  his  brother  were  still  compdratively 
young,  than  at  any  later  time. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  321 

of  "Johanan"  ("unV),  and  this  fact  has  led  some  to  conjecture 
that  the  Chronicler's  list  orginally  contained  seven  names  instead 
of  six.  But  the  conjecture  has  very  little  probability,  for  the 
following  reasons.  (1)  The  number  of  the  names  in  vss.  10  f., 
from  Eliashib  to  Jaddua,  agrees  with  the  number  in  vs.  22. 
(2)  The  transcriber's  error,  'ri:V  for  'ilnV,  is  an  extremely  easy 
one.  (3)  Josephus  makes  no  mention  of  a  "Jonathan."  It  is 
evident  from  this  that  his  text  of  Nehemiah  had  the  reading 
"Johanan"  in  12:11;  if  the  Chronicler's  genealogical  table  in 
the  form  which  he  had  before  him  had  contained  both  names, 
he  certainly  would  have  included  both  in  his  history,  since  the 
Chronicler  is  his  only  source  of  information  as  to  the  predecessors 
of  Jaddua  and  Johanan. 

Of  the  preceding  names  in  the  list,  between  Johanan  and 
Jeshua,  we  are  at  present  unable  to  make  any  use,  since  we  have 
no  means  of  knowing  whether  the  Chronicler  invented  them  or  not.*' 

X.       the    rivalry    with    the    SAMARITANS 

One  very  important  phase  of  the  struggle  for  the  religious 
restoration  of  Jerusalem  is  still  to  be  considered,  namely,  the  con- 
test for  the  recognition  of  Zerubbabel's  temple  as  the  one  true 
Palestinian  home  of  the  worship  of  Yahw6.  It  was  not  simply 
a  question  of  the  persistence  of  other  Hebrew  sanctuaries.  More 
than  one  sacred  place  continued  to  be  greatly  revered,  without 
ever  becoming  dangerous  as  a  rival,  so  far  as  we  know.  For 
■  example,  on  at  least  two  occasions  when  Jerusalem  was  stricken,  the 
ancient  shrine  of  Mizpah  was  the  rallying  place  of  the  people. 
It  was  here  that  Gedaliah  made  his  headquarters  after  the  burn- 
ing of  the  temple  (II  Kings  25:23),  and  thither  also  the  Jews 
under  Judas  Maccabseus  turned  in  the  time  of  their  greatest  dis- 
tress (I  Mace.  3:40-51).  But  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  at  any  time  after  the  building  of  Solomon's  temple  Mizpah 

*'  It  is  clear,  at  any  rate,  that  he  was  mistaken  as  to  the  time  at  which  Johanan  became 
high  priest.  What  ho  knew  with  certainty  was,  that  Jaddua  was  high  priest  at  the  time 
when  Alexander  the  Great  appeared  ;and  he  believed  tiiat  Johanan  was  the  next 
before  Jaddua.  In  Ezra  10:6  (of.  Neh.  12:23)  Johanan  is  evidently  thought  of  as  a 
youth  in  the  seventh  year  of  Artaxerxes  Mnomon;  and  in  Neh.  13:28,  dated  in  the  thirty- 
s  'cond  year  of  the  same  king,  the  grandfather,  Eliashib  (or  is  it  the  father,  Joiada?)  is 
still  holiing  the  office  of  high  priest.  But  we  know  from  the  Elephantine  papyrus  that 
Johanan  was  holding  the  office  in  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Darius  II,  at  least  eight 
years  before  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  II.  Considering  the  fact  that 
nearly  seventy  years  intervened  between  the  accession  of  Artaxerxes  Mnemon  and 
that  of  Darius  (.'odomannus,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  Chronicler  was  thus  misled. 


322  Ezra  Studies 

really  threatened  to  become  the  principal  Israelite  seat  of  worship. 
There  was  only  one  city  in  all  the  land  which  could  and  did  dis- 
pute Jerusalem's  claim  to  the  religious  primacy,  and  that  city  was 
Shechem.  As  one  of  the  most  sacred  localities  in  the  territory  of 
Israel,  Shechem  had  been  important  from  the  beginning,  and  its 
importance  had  grown.  After  the  fall  of  the  Southern  Kingdom, 
its  prestige  was  much  increased.  By  degrees,  the  rivalry  of  the 
shrine  on  Mount  Gerizim  became  really  serious,  and  many 
passages  in  the  Old  Testament  show  that  the  Jews  were  becoming 
concerned  to  maintain  the  supremacy  of  their  own  temple,  and  to 
combat  the  pretensions  of  their  dangerous  competitors.  At  last, 
the  rivalry  broke  out  into  open  conflict,  ending  in  a  struggle  for 
life  or  death  which  exercised  a  profound  influence  on  the  Judean 
community,  especially  in  and  after  the  Greek  period.  If  the 
chief  of  those  forces  which  principally  shaped  the  Jewish  theology 
of  the  Restoration  was  the  Dispersion,  that  one  which  contributed 
most  to  the  development  of  the  tendencies  which  produced  the 
narrower  and  more  exclusive  type  of  "Judaism"  —  a  type  which 
plays  only  a  very  small  part  in  the  Old  Testament,  be  it  noted — 
was  the  long  contest  with  the  Samaritans. 

Shechem  had  been  the  chief  center  of  the  patriarchal  history. 
In  the  very  beginning,  a  sacred  tree  had  stood  there,  with  an  altar 
and  a  masseba.  Abraham  himself  founded  the  sanctuary,  on  the 
day  when  he  first  received  the  promise  of  the  land  for  his  children 
(Gen.  12:6  f.).  There  Jacob  had  worshiped,  and  the  well  which 
he  had  dug  was  near  by.  Joshua,  after  finishing  his  work,  made 
his  solemn  covenant  with  the  people  at  this  shrine  (Josh.  24:1, 
25  f.),  and  it  was  in  this  vicinity  that  the  bones  of  Joseph  were 
buried  (Josh.  24:32).  In  the-book  of  Deuteronomy,  in  more  than 
one  place,  Mount  Gerizim  is  given  especial  honor  in  connection  with 
the  proclaiming  of  the  law.  The  "blessing"  is  put  on  Mount 
Gerizim,  and  the  "curse"  on  Mount   Ebal  (Deut.  11:29).^** 

^f'This  fact  is  immediately  obscured  by  vs.  30,  which  contains  a  later  addition  by  means 
of  which  the  two  mountains  are  transferred  la  the  Jordan  valley.  The  verse  reads  at  present : 
"Are  they  not  on  the  other  side  of  the  Jordan,  beyond  the  western  road,  in  the  land  of  the 
Canaauite  who  dwells  in  tlie  Arabah,  opposite  Gilgal,  beside  the  terebinths  of 
Moreh?"  What  Ebal  and  Gerizim  have  to  do  with  "the  Arabah,"  and  how  they  could  be 
described  as  "opposite  Gilf,'al "  (some  twenty-eight  miles  SSW.  of  Shechem  !),  are  questions 
which  have  puzzled  the  commentators;  Driver,  Comrn.,  pp.  133 f.,  for  instance,  confesses  his 
inability  to  answer  them.  But  the  fact  is,  these  added  phrases  were  intended  to  discomfit 
the  Samaritans  by  showing  that  another  pair  of  mountains,  bearing  the  same  names  but 
lying  much  nearer  to  the  old  crossing  of  the  Jordan,  wore  originally  intended.  This  altera- 
tion, made  before  the  time  of  the  schism,  was  the  forerunner  of  the  later  deliberate  change 
of  "Gerizim"  to  "Ebal,"  in  the  Jewish  text  of  Deut.  27:4  and  Josh.  8:30  (see  below).    So 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  323 

By  the  command  of  Yaliw6  through  Moses,  the  people  build  an 
altar  on  the  sacred  mountain,  Gerizim,  as  soon  as  they  have 
crossed  the  Jordan  into  the  promised  land  (Deut.  27:1-8;  Josh. 
8:30  ft'.)/"  No  wonder  that  the  Samaritans  kept  reiterating:  Our 
fathers,  the  patriarchs,  worshiped  in  this  mountain! 

All  through  the  time  of  the  Hebrew  kingdoms,  this  ancient 
sanctuary  was  especially  revered.  It  is  probably  an  exaggeration, 
however,  when  in  Luther-Meyer  [Israelitcn  und  N achharsidmme, 
p.  559)  it  is  spoken  of  as  the  main  religious  rallying-point  for  all 
northern  Israel.  Shechem  did  not  have  any  great  central  im- 
portance, as  a  seat  of  worship,  in  the  days  of  the  monarchy.  If 
this  had  indeed  been  the  fact,  some  definite  indication  of  it  would 
pretty  certainly  have  been  preserved.  The  Northern  Kingdom  had 
other  religious  centers  which  came  into  political  prominence,  and 
Shechem  was  temporarily  eclipsed — for  reasons  which  we  do  not 
happen  to  know.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  existing  conditions 
were  altered  in  any  important  respect  by  the  deportation  of  some 
of  the  people  of  the  district  of  Samaria,  and  the  corresponding 
importation  of  foreigners,  under  the  Assyrian  rule.  The  members 
of  this  religious  community  were,  and  continued  to  be,  mainly 
Hebrews  (on  this  subject  see  further  below).  The  significant 
change  began  when  the  temple  in  Jerusalem  was  destroyed,  and 
the  kingdom  of  the  house  of  David  was  brought  to  an  end.  Then, 
as  was  natural,  the  sanctuary  on  Mount  Gerizim  gained  greatly  in 
importance;  all  the  more  so  when  Samaria  became  the  first  main 
seat  of  government  in  Palestine  under  the  Persian  rule.  Doubt- 
less not  a  few  of  the  fugitives  from  Jerusalem,  including  some  of 
the  clergy,  betook  themselves  at  once  to  Shechem  after  the  great 
calamity  of  the  year  586;  see  the  remarks  already  made,  pp. 
209,  212,  235  f.  We  are  not  to  suppose  that  even  now,  after  the 
rapid  rise  in  the  influence  of  the  northern  shrine,  the  worship 
there  was  performed  on  any  such  scale,  or  with  any  such  central 
significance,  as  that  in  Jerusalem  had  been  and  soon  came  to  be 
again.     The   prescriptions   of    the    book    of    Deuteronomy    were 

Eduard  Meyer,  Die  Israeliten  und  ihre  Nachbarstdmme,  pp.  543  ff.  I  am  glad  to  be  able  now 
to  refer  to  those  illuminating  investigations  of  Luther-Meyer,  instead  of  needing  to  elaborate 
my  own  arguments  and  conclusions  on  these  points. 

*'JThe  Samaritan  Pentateuch  has  the  original  reading  in  Deut. ;  "Gerizim,"  not  "Ebal." 
In  the  Jewish  text,  tiie  name  "Ebal  "was  substituted  in  both  Deut.  27:4  and  Josh. 
8 :  30,  after  the  secession  of  the  Samaritans.  See  Meyer,  op.  cit.,  pp.  54.'j  f.  This  is  a  conclusion 
of  whose  correctness  I  have  long  been  assured.  It  has  been  generally  customary  to  accuse 
the  Samaritans,  rather  than  the  Jews,  of  having  made  the  alteration.    See  further  below. 


324  Ezra  Studies 

known  and  respected  (as  the  event  proved)  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  Palestine,  wherever  any  close  attention  was  paid 
to  the  Mosaic  ritual.  The  sanctuary  at  Shechem  had  its  own 
priesthood,  of  course,  but  not  a  high  priest  and  the  machinery 
of  a  great  central  shrine.  These,  as  the  narratives  show,  came 
later,  in  consequence  of  the  break  with  Jerusalem.  After  the 
Judeans  had  rebuilt  their  temple,  the  Samaritan  church  continued 
to  flourish,  and  still  as  an  institution  of  secondary  rank,  not  claim- 
ing to  be  the  chief  religious  rallying-point  of  Israel.  In  all 
probability  there  was  no  sharp  rivalry,  such  as  to  produce  bad 
feeling  between  the  two  communities  in  general,  until  shortly  be- 
fore the  liijra  of  Manasseh  and  his  adherents.  Even  in  the  year 
408  B.  c,  the  time  of  the  petition  from  Elephantine,  the  churches 
of  Jerusalem  and  Shechem  seem  to  have  been  still  "on  speaking 
terms."  The  Jews  of  Egypt  plainly  knew  of  no  open  hostility 
existing  between  them.  The  Shechemites,  on  their  part,  had  no 
reason  to  be  hostile.  Beyond  any  doubt,  they  still  acknowledged 
the  primacy  of  the  temple  on  Mount  Moriah,  though  giving  the 
regulations  of  Deuteronomy  an  interpretation  conformed  to  their 
own  interests.  Hence  they  accepted  the  Jerusalem  redaction  of 
the  Pentateuch.  They  wished,  of  course,  to  have  their  own  sanc- 
tuary recognized  and  authorized,  and  so  long  as  the  Judean 
temple  had  the  upper  hand,  especially  in  the  matter  of  the  literary 
tradition,  the  safest  course  was  to  hold  to  it.  The  Jews,  on  the 
contrary,  had  nothing  to  gain,  and  much  to  lose,  from  any  express 
recognition  of  the  shrine  on  Gerizim.  The  time  came,  moreover, 
when  they  saw  that  the  prestige  of  their  own  temple  was  really  in 
jeopardy;  and  from  that  time  on  they  became,  at  least  in  secret, 
more  and  more  jealous  of  their  northern  brethren. 

There  was  a  definite  time  when  the  already  strained  relations 
between  the  church  in  Jerusalem  and  that  in  Shechem  suffered  an 
important  change,  covert  opposition  being  replaced  by  open  and 
bitter  hostility.  Something  happened  which  was  at  once  so  dis- 
agreeable and  so  decisive  in  its  character  that  it  led  to  an  imme- 
diate declaration  of  independence  on  the  part  of  the  Samaritans. 
Thenceforward  they  were  done  with  all  allegiance  to  the  temple 
in  Judea,  or  even  with  recognition  of  it  on  equal  terms.  "  Ye 
say  that  in  Jerusalem  is  the  place  where  men  ought  to  worship," 
but  "our  fathers  worshiped  in  this  mountain"  (John 
4:20).     The  Jews  responded  even  more  bitterly,  and  war  to  the 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  325 

knife  was  declared.  This  was  the  real  "Samaritan  schism,"  and 
it  proved  to  be  an  important  turning-point  in  the  history  of 
Palestine.  We  know  at  least  the  nature  of  the  event  which  caused 
this  sudden  and  violent  outburst  of  feeling  and  the  separation 
which  was  incurable  from  the  first.  A  young  Jew  of  the  family 
of  the  high  priest  married  the  daughter  of  the  governor  of 
Samaria,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  his  own  family  and  of  his 
most  zealous  Jewish  associates.  In  consequence,  he  was  disowned 
and  driven  from  Jerusalem;  while  on  the  other  hand  his  father- 
in-law  made  him  high  priest  of  the  Samaritan  church,  and  built  a 
fine  temple  for  the  sanctuary  on  Mount  Gerizim.  Either  the 
young  renegade  had  been  especially  popular  in  Jerusalem,  or  else 
there  was  already  considerable  disaffection  in  the  ranks  of  the 
Jewish  clergy;  at  any  rate,  a  goodly  number  of  priests  and  Levites 
deserted  at  once,  following  their  leader  to  the  northern  sanctu- 
ary.'" 

By  ill  fortune,  the  sources  of  our  knowledge  of  these  events 
are  both  meager  and  ambiguous.  It  is  universally  supposed  that 
our  two  chief  sources  contradict  each  other,  but  this  I  believe  to 
be  a  mistake.  Our  best  modern  scholars  are  in  doubt  as  to  the 
name  of  the  young  fugitive  and  that  of  his  father  the  high  priest. 
The  one  thing  of  which  all  are  sure  is  the  name  of  the  Samaritan 
governor,  Sanaballat,  in  whose  time  the  event  occurred.  But 
even  here  there  is  a  very  disturbing  element  of  uncertainty,  inas- 
much as  two  dates,  about  one  hundred  years  apart,  seem  to  be 
given  for  his  time.  The  earlier  date  is  the  one  now  accepted  by 
the  great  majority  of  scholars;  the  other  is  the  one  which  I 
myself  believe  to  be  correct.  I  think  it  can  be  shown  that,  so  far 
as  the  Samaritan  schism  is  concerned,  the  later  date  is  the  only 
one  which  can  seriously  be  taken  into  account. 

Direct  information  from  contemporary  sources  as  to  the 
feeling  in  Jerusalem  against  these  adversaries,  in  the  early  time, 
is  very  scarce  indeed.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  the 
Jews  had  "no  dealings  with  the  Samaritans"  (John.  4:9).  It 
was  a  somewhat  unusual  thing  for  a  Jew  passing  through  the 
Samaritan  country  to  exchange  a  word  with  one  of  its  inhabitants, 
even  where  it  was  merely  a  case  of  a  man  chatting  with  a  woman. 
Bar  Sira,  writing  about  180  B.C.,  mentions  the  hated  rivals  with 

^"Jospphus,  ^»iW.  xi,  8,  6,  calls  Shechem  a  city  "  inhabited  by  apostates  of  the  Jewish 
nation."    Probably  its  inhabitants  had  always  been  prevailingly  Hebrew. 


326  Ezra  Studies 

a  contemptuous  phrase  (50:26):  "that  foolish  people  that  dwells 
in  Shechem,"  and  declares  that  they  are  "no  nation"  (vs.  25)/' 
Evidently  in  his  day,  also,  the  two  Hebrew  churches,  worshipers 
of  Yahw6  and  custodians  of  the  Mosaic  law,  were  deadly  enemies 
and  had  been   such  for  a  long  time  past.  The  Chronicler, 

writing  some  fifty  years  earlier  than  Bar  Sira,  made  it  his  great 
work  to  establish  the  sole  legitimacy  of  the  institutions  of  Jerusa- 
lem in  opposition  to  the  Samaritan  claims.  From  the  manner 
in  which  he  proceeds,  and  the  scale  on  which  his  work  is  planned, 
it  is  evident  that  the  contest  in  his  day  was  bitter,  and,  what  is 
more,  that  the  Jews  were  in  some  real  danger  of  being  outstripped. 
He  attacks  the  Shechemites  both  openly,  making  them  out  to  be 
a  heterogeneous  mob  of  heathen  (see  for  example  pp.  169,  173, 
182  f.),  and  also  indirectly,  through  the  medium  of  the  Northern 
Kingdom  (pp.  235  ff. ),  or  the  opponents  of  Nehemiah  (p.  21:9), 
or  in  still  other  ways.  The  Aramaic  story  which  the  Chronicler 

incorporated  in  Ezra,  chaps.  4-6,  contained  a  slightly  earlier 
polemic  of  a  similar  character.  The  author  of  this  popular 
narrative  probably  lived  and  wrote  not  far  from  250  b.  c.  The 

malicious  alteration  of  "Gerizim"  to  "Ebal,"  in  the  Jerusalem 
text  of  Deut.  27:4  and  Josh.  8:30,  has  already  been  mentioned. 
The  date  of  this  change  can  only  be  conjectured,  but  it  was  prob- 
ably very  soon  after  the  secession  of  the  Samaritans,^^  Earlier  still 
came  the  tendentious  alteration  of  Deut.  11:30,  already  described. 
One  of  the  late  narratives  of  II  Kings  is  an  interesting  docu- 
ment of  the  rivalry  between  the  two  Hebrew  communities,  those 
of  Judea  and  Samaria,  before  the  time  of  the  schism.  It  is  the 
story  of  the  origin  of  the  Samaritan  people,  composed  with 
an  animus  which  is  constantly  in  evidence.  We  know  from  the 
Assyrian  records  that  in  the  year  722  Sargon  deported  27,290  of 
the  people  of  the  Northern  Kingdom  of  Israel,  filling  their  place 
with  colonists  from  his  eastern  domain.  The  number  of  those 
deported  is  not  unusually  large,  and  was  certainly  only  a  small 
fraction  of  the  Hebrew  population  of  the  region.      But  the  Jewish 

51  It  is  plain  that  Bar  Sira  is  here  quoting  Dout.  32 :  21 :  "  I  will  move  them  to  jealousy 
with  those  who  are  no  nation;  I  will  provoke  them  to  anger  with  a  foolish  people."  The 
fact  may  bo  without  significance,  but  the  possibility  can  hardly  bo  denied  that  in  the  original 
passage  also  (of  course  written  prior  to  the  hijra  of  Manasseh)  the  Samaritans  were 
intended. 

■'2The  alteration  may  possibly  have  been  made  before  the  schism,  in  which  case  we 
should  have  to  suppose  that  the  Samaritans  know  the  original  reading  and  restored  it. 
There  is  little  to  choose  between  the  two  hypotheses. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  3S7 

narrator  makes  characteristic  use  of  the  opportunity.  Accordiilg 
to  II  Kings  17:6,  18,  23;  18:9-12,  all  the  Israelites  of  the 
Northern  Kingdom  were  carried  away  at  this  time  to  Assyria  and 
Media!  "Yahw^  was  very  angry  with  Israel,  and  removed  them 
out  of  his  sight;  there  was  none  left  hut  the  tribe  of  Judah  only^^ 
(17:18).  And  having  thus  removed  the  last  remnant  of  the 
chosen  people  from  the  region  of  Samaria,  the  narrator  proceeds, 
in  17:24-41,  to  describe  the  religious  condition  of  the  heathen 
rabble  with  which  the  land  had  been  filled  by  the  Assyrian  king. 
They  professed  to  worship  Yahw6  (the  same  contemptuous 
taunt  which  is  made  in  Ezr.  4:2),  but  came  to  this  mind  only 
under  compulsion  (17:25  f.),  and  really  continued  to  worship 
their  own  idols,  the  gods  of  Cutha,  Hamath,  Babylon,  and  all  the 
other  places  from  which  they  had  come  (cf.  Ezr.  4:9  f.,  etc.). 
"They  made  unto  themselves  of  the  lowest  of  them  priests  of  the 
high  places,  who  sacrificed  for  them  in  the  houses  of  the  high 
places"  (17:32);  compare  the  railing  accusation  made  in  II 
Chron.  13:9  ff.  (above,  p.  235).  And  in  summing  up  it  is  said, 
in  vs.  41:  "So  these  nations  'feared  Yahw6,'  but  served  their 
own  graven  images,  they  and  their  children  and  their  children's 
children;  as  did  their  fathers,  so  do  they  unto  this  day.''''  To 
regard  all  this  as  a  true  record  of  events  is  not  possible  for  any 
one  who  knows  both  the  history  of  the  past  and  the  way  in  which 
the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were  written.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  not  all  accepted  as  trustworthy  by  modern 
scholars.  Cowley,  Jewish  Encyclopedia,  article  "Samaritans," 
p.  070,  says:  "It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  country 
was  in  any  sense  depopulated  by  these  means,"  that  is,  by 
Sargon's  deportation  of  Israelites.  H.  P.  Smith,  Old  Testament 
History,  p.  230,  also  denies  that  the  story  of  the  deportation  and 
subsequent  importation,  as  given  in  II  Kings,  is  historically  true; 
and  says  in  regard  to  the  description  of  the  religion  of  the 
Samaritans  (p.  231,  note  2)  :    "The  account  in  II  Kings  17:24-34 

seems  to  be  composite A  later  hand  emphasizes  the  syn- 

cretistic  character  of  the  new  religion,  doubtless  with  a  strong 
prejudice  against  the  Samaritans."  Several  scholars  have,  indeed, 
pronounced  the  passage  composite,  but  this  is  a  mistake  caused 
by  misapprehension  of  its  character.  Both  17:1-23  and  18:9-12 
are  inseparable  from  17:24-41,  and  if  there  is  evidence  of  the 
work  of  more  than  one  hand  here,  I,  at  least,  am  unable  to  find  it. 


328  Ezra  Studies 

It  is  obviously  the  whole  account,  and  not  merely  a  fragment 
of  it,  that  is  written  with  the  "strong  prejudice  against  the 
Samaritans."  The  story  of  the  deportation  of  (ill  the  Israelites 
is  told  for  the  sake  of  populating  the  land  completely  with 
heathen,  and  this  for  the  express  purpose  of  showing  the  origin 
of  the  cult  on  Mount  Gerizim.  The  passage  17:24:-41  has  not 
the  least  historical  value.^^  But  the  testimony  of  the  account  as 
an  anti-Samaritan  polemic  is  significant  and  valuable.  The  date 
of  it  is  unfortunately  only  a  matter  of  conjecture;  I  have  no 
doubt,  however,  that  it  was  prior  to  the  secession,  most  likely  in 
the  fifth  century  B.C.  It  is  obviously  of  one  piece  with  the 
polemic  of  the  Chronicler  and  his  Aramaic-writing  colleague,  and 
provided  the  former,  at  least,  with  an  important  part  of  his 
material.  It  may  be  added,  finally,  that  there  is  no  evidence  of 
hostility  to  this  Shechemite  shrine  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  the 
composition  of  Deuteronomy.  In  that  book,  the  sanctuary  on 
Mount  Gerizim  is  mentioned  with  great  respect;  there  is  nothing 
to  show  that  it  was  obnoxious  to  the  people  of  Jerusalem.'^* 

Returning  to  the  question  of  the  date  of  the  Samaritan 
secession:  there  are  four  documents  which  need  especially  to  be 
taken  into  account,  in  determining  when  the  decisive  event  took 
place.  These  are:  (1)  the  full  and  circumstantial  account  given 
by  Josephus,  Antt.  xi,  7,  2;  8,  2-7;  (2)  the  two  verses,  Neh, 
13:28  f . ;  (3)  the  letter  from  Elephantine,  published  by  Sachau; 
(4)  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch.  Let  us  begin  with  the  last-named 
of  these  documents.  When  the  Samaritans  declared  war  on  the 
Jews,  and  set  up  their  own  temple  in  open  rivalry  to  the  one  in 

5 1  It  is  plain  that  this  is  exactly  the  sort  of  story  which  the  Samaritans  on  their 
part  could,  and  uadoubelly  did,  make  up  in  regard  to  the  Jews.  They  would  liave 
been  a  p3ople  thick-witted  above  all  others  if  they  had  failed  to  seize  the  obvious  oppor- 
tunity. They  could  claim  (and  the  Jews'  own  scriptures  would  .support  the  claim!)  that 
Jerusalem  and  Judoa  were  entirely  depopulated  by  the  armies  of  Nebuchailrczzar ;  that 
E  lomites,  A  nmonites,  Philisrines,  NHbateans,  and  many  otliers,  had  poured  in  (the  Jews 
admitted  this);  that  there  was  very  little  genuine  Hebrew  blood  in  Judea  at  the  end  of  the 
Persian  period;  and  that  the  cult  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  durhig  much  of  the  time  of 
the  Restoration  was  really  a  syncretism  of  various  South  Palestinian  and  North  Arabian 
form-i  of  idolatry.  S  icli  a  repreientttion  would  have  had  in  it  just  about  as  much  truth  as 
the  malicious  account  in  II  Kings  17.  TbeJewscouldmakenosatisfactory  reply 
to  it,  however;  and  it  was  for  this  very  reason  that  the  Chronicler  composed  his 
"history."  After  he  had  finished  his  work,  tlio  renown  of  Jerusalem  and  the  disgrace  of 
Shoehorn  w  !re  b  )th  assured.  It  is  a  pity  that  wj  hive  only  the  Jewish  stories  of  the 
Samaritans,  and  not  also  the  Samaritan  stories  of  the  Jews. 

3<Some  recent  commentators  on  the  book  of  Isaiah  have  found  in  chaps.  65  and  C6,  as 
well  as  elsewhere  in  the  latter  part  of  the  book,  a  polemic  against  the  Samaritans.  The 
lofty  utterance  in  66:1,  for  instance,  is  said  to  be  an  allusion  to  the  temple  on  Mount 
Gerizim  1 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  329 

Jerusalem,  they  organized  their  expanded  cultus  on  the  basis  of 
the  Pentateuch.  This  revered  book,  which  contained  the  story 
of  the  Hebrew  origins,  their  laws,  mostly  ancient,  and  the 
elaborate  prescriptions  regarding  the  cultus,  largely  more  recent, 
was  the  property  of  the  whole  Hebrew  people.  The  entire  com- 
pilation, from  Genesis  to  Deuteronomy,  would  of  necessity  be  the 
text-book  of  any  Hebrew  sanctuary.  The  Shechemites  of  course 
regarded  (and  had  long  regarded)  their  own  right  to  the  Penta- 
teuch as  entirely  equal  to  that  of  the  Judean  community;  though 
they  had  admitted,  as  we  have  seen,  that  to  the  temple  in 
Jerusalem  belonged  the  special  prerogatives  and  the  unique  ritual 
of  the  center  of  worship.  When,  therefore,  we  see  that  the 
Pentateuch  of  the  Samaritans  is  identical  with  that  of 
the  Jews,  we  know  with  certainty  that  the  hisiorij  of  the  growth 
of  these  five  books  of  3Ioses  icas  closed  before  the  time  of  the 
schism.  No  alteration  or  addition  made  by  the  Jews  in  Jerusalem 
after  the  separation  would  ever  have  been  accepted  by  the 
priests  at  Shechem.  They  would,  on  the  contrary,  at  once  have 
raised  the  cry  that  their  rivals  were  falsifying  the  records;  and 
with  the  documents  in  their  hands  they  could  have  proved  their 
point.  The  Jews  were  estopped  from  any  further  redaction  of 
the  book,  because  their  opponents  also  had  it.  Nevertheless,  they 
did  make  the  single  verbal  change  from  "Gerizim"  to"Ebal,"  as 
we  have  seen.  The  Samaritans  made  no  alterations  at  all.  The 
weight  of  past  history  and  present  circumstances  was  against 
them,  from  the  start,  and  their  only  hope  of  ultimate  triumph 
lay  in  refraining  from  all  tampering  with  the  sacred  documents. 
At  the  time,  then,  when  the  independent  Samaritan  church  was 
founded,  the  Pentateuch  was  regarded,  both  in  Jerusalem  and  in 
Shechem,  as  complete  and  unalterable.  No  other  hypothesis  is 
tenable.  This  conclusion  argues  strongly  for  the  later  of  the  two 
proposed  dates  of  the  schism.  The  ablest  commentators  on  the 
Pentateuch,  at  the  present  day,  would  probably  all  agree  that  the 
final  redaction  of  the  Hebrew  text  could  hardly  have  taken  place 
so  long  as  two  centuries  before  the  date  of  the  first  Greek 
translation. 

As  has  already  been  remarked,  the  petition  from  the  Jewish 
church  at  Elephantine,  so  far  as  its  mention  of  the  household  of 
Sanaballat  as  possible  helpers  can  be  used  as  an  argument,  would 
seem  to  show  that  the  breach  between  Jews  and  Samaritans  took 


330  Ezra  Studies 

place  later  than  408  B.C.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  univer- 
sally taken  for  granted  that  Samaria  never  had  but  one  gov- 
ernor named  Sanaballat;  and  since  he  is  represented  in  the 
papyrus  letter  as  a  man  far  advanced  in  years,  the  conclusion  is 
drasvn  that  the  hijra  had  taken  place  some  time  before  this,  and 
that  Neh.  13:  28  f,  is  a  description  of  the  event.  But  on  the  con- 
trary, "Sanaballat"  may  well  have  been  a  common  name,  and 
even  a  good  Hebrew  name,  as  I  have  already  argued.  The  Ele- 
phantine letter  may  even  be  said  to  make  it  probable  that  another 
Sanaballat  held  the  post  of  governor  in  Samaria  in  the  next 
following  generation.  The  duties  of  the  office  were  already,  in 
408,  exercised  by  the  two  sons  of  Sanaballat,  named  Delaiah  and 
Shelemiah,  and  upon  his  death  one  of  them,  presumably  the  older 
of  the  two,  was  evidently  expected  to  succeed  him.  According  to 
the  well  known  law  of  Semitic  nomenclature,  the  oldest  grand- 
son of  Sanaballat,  if  there  should  be  one,  was  pretty  certain  to 
bear  the  name  of  his  grandfather.  That  is,  if  the  Persians  per- 
mitted the  office  to  remain  in  this  family — ^and  judging  from  the 
papyrus  letter  they  did  so  permit  —  all  probability  pointed  to  a 
Sanaballat  II  as  the  successor  to  it  at  the  time  when  Delaiah  and 
Shelemiah  should  be  old  men;  that  is,  at  just  about  the  time 
when  Darius  III  ascended  the  throne.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
evidence  before  us  is  sufficient  to  show  that  this  probability  was 
actually  realized.  At  the  time  when  Alexander  the  Great  arrived 
in  Syria,  the  governor  of  Samaria  was,  in  fact,  Sanaballat  II. 

As  for  Neh.  13:28f.,  the  interpretation  which  I  have  already 
given  (pp.  235,  249)  seems  to  me,  for  every  reason,  the  only 
possible  one.  The  incident  narrated  by  the  Chronicler  (for  it  is 
certainly  he,  and  not  Nehemiah,  who  is  the  narrator)  cannot  be 
the  same  as  the  one  described  by  Josephus  in  the  passage  presently 
to  be  discussed.  If  the  great  patriot  Nehemiah  had  been  con- 
nected in  tradition — and  ivrittcn  tradition! — with  the  Samaritan 
secession;  if  Neh.  13:28  had  been  supposed  to  contain  mention 
of  the  renegade  Manasseh;  could  these  facts  ever  have  been 
forgotten  in  Jerusalem  ?  Most  certainly  not.  Moreover,  accord- 
ing to  Josephus  this  renegade  was  the  brother  of  the  high  priest 
Jaddua;  according  to  the  Chronicler,  the  man  whom  Nehemiah 
"chased"  away  was  "one  of  the  sons  of  Joiada,  the  son  of  Eliashib 
the  high  priest."  The  name  of  the  high  priest  in  whose  time  this 
momentous  event  occurred  could  never  have  been  lost  to  sight. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  331 

The  two  stories  are  not  the  same;  but  on  the  other  hand,  they 
are  certainly  .not  independent  of  each  other;  the  Chronicler 
obviously  wished  to  show  how  Nehemiah  had  dealt  with  a  case 
precisely  like  that  of  Manasseh, 

The  story  of  the  schism  told  by  Josephus,  finally,  runs  as 
follows  {Antf.  xi,  7,  2;  8,  2):  Sanaballat,  the  governor  of 
Samaria  under  Darius  III,  gave  his  daughter  Nicaso  (Nt«ao-c6) 
in  marriage  to  Manasseh,  the  brother  of  the  high  priest  Jaddua. 
The  elders  of  Jerusalem  were  greatly  incensed,  and  insisted  that 
the  obnoxious  marriage  should  be  annulled.  Sanaballat  therefore 
promised  the  youth  that  if  he  would  leave  Jerusalem  and  take  up 
his  abode  in  Shechem,  he  would  build  a  fine  temple  at  the  shrine 
on  Mount  Gerizim,  and  secure  his  formal  appointment  as  high 
priest  there.  Manasseh  consented,  and  a  great  uproar  was  the 
result.  Moreover,  in  his  flight  to  Shechem  he  was  accompanied 
by  a  large  number  of  priests,  Levites,  and  others.  The  story  is 
embellished  in  Josephus'  usual  manner,  and  contains  some  details 
which  are  not  to  be  taken  seriously,  such  as  the  incidents  in  which 
Alexander  the  Great  figures,  the  statement  that  Sanaballat  was 
"a  Cuthean"  (the  favorite  gentilic  to  be  applied  to  the  Samaritans) 
"sent  into  the  land  by  Darius,"  and  so  on.  But  in  its  main  state- 
ments regarding  the  schism  it  is  self-consistent  and  plausible  in 
every  way.  No  information  which  we  possess  contradicts  it;  on 
the  contrary,  all  that  we  know  tends  to  support  it.^'^  One  important 
argument  in  its  favor  can  now  be  drawn  from  the  story  of  Johanan, 
Jeshua,  and  the  Persian  governor  Bagoas,  which  just  precedes 
that  of  Manasseh.  In  both  of  these  stories  Josephus  cuts  quite 
loose  from  the  Chronicler,  and  uses  a  source,  or  sources,  concern- 
ing which  we  have  had  no  knowledge  until  very  recently.  Now, 
however,  as  I  have  shown,  the  former  of  the  narratives  has  been 

^''Tlie  authpnticity  of  the  tradition  i)f  the  name  "Manasseh"  seems  to  be  s^upported 
indirectly  in  the  following  ways:  (.1)  by  the  suspended  nun  in  the  name  m0^73  if  Judges 
18:30,  by  means  of  which  the  priests  of  the  idolHtn.us  Danite  sanctuary  are  made  to  be 
descended  not  from  "Moses."  but  from  "Manasseh."  This  was  the  story  of  the  origin  of  a 
chief  f-hrine  of  the  Northern  Kingdom,  and  tlie  two-edged  witticism  which  introduced  the 
name  of  this  most  notorious  of  all  priests  was  a  characteristic  one.  It  has  been  customary 
to  refer  the  allusion  to  Kitir;  Manasseh,  but  this  is  much  loss  likely.  Professor  Moore,  who 
in  his  Jtidf/es,  pp.  401 II.,  adopted  the  traditional  exijjanation,  tells  me  tiiat  he  has  since  come 
to  believe  that  the  Samaritan  renegade  is  the  one  intended.  (2)  Uy  the  nam(M)f  the  heroine's 
husband  in  the  book  of  Judith.  The  only  imaginable  reason  for  the  choice  of  the  hated 
name  "Manas-eli"  here  is  the  wish  of  the  irood-huniored  narrator  to  show  liis  own  appre- 
ciation of  the  fact  that  the  scene  of  his  stirring  tale  is  laid,  after  all,  in  the  city  of  the  Jews' 
arch-enemies.  For  the  demonstration  of  tlie  identity  of  Shechem  with  "  Kethulia,"  I  may 
refer  to  my  article  "  The  Site  of  Bethulia  "  in  the  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  .Sctve^y, 
Vol.  XX  (1899),  pp.  160-72. 


332  Ezra  Studies 

shown  to  be  true  history;  and  a  strong  presumption  is  thus 
created  in  favor  of  the  other,  which  was  presumably  derived  from 
the  same  source. 

The  secession  of  the  Samaritans,  then,  occurred  shortly  before 
the  end  of  the  Persian  rule.  For  some  time  before  the  actual 
breach,  the  relation  between  the  two  communities  had  been  grow- 
ing more  and  more  strained.  It  was  either  during  this  period, 
just  before  the  outbreak,  or  (more  probably)  on  the  occasion  of 
the  secession,  that  the  Shechemites  took  the  Pentateuch  into  their 
own  hands  once  for  all,  and  would  hear  no  more  of  Judean 
redactions  and  improvements.  It  had  been,  for  generations  past, 
the  book  of  the  great  sanctuary  in  Jerusalem,  expanded  and 
revised  there  by  the  Jewish  priests,  and  it  had  not  occurred  to  the 
Samaritans  to  interfere  with  this  development.  They  had  taken 
what  was  set  before  them,  no  matter  how  unpalatable  it  often  was. 
But  now  that  they  saw  themselves  compelled  to  cut  loose,  the 
book  was  henceforth  their  own  property,  to  be  preserved  just  as 
it  stood.  The  character  of  the  worship  on  Mount  Gerizim,  we 
may  suppose,  was  not  materially  changed  by  the  secession.  It 
had  always  followed  the  Mosaic  law,  with  its  own  interpretations 
and  peculiarities  of  ritual  usage,  which  were  now  also  retained.^'' 
Even  more  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the 
effect  of  the  schism  was  to  stiffen  every  characteristic  feature  of 
the  praxis.  There  was  a  natural  tendency  in  the  ranks  of  the 
clergy  to  put  increasing  emphasis  on  certain  local  forms  of  organi- 
zation, and  to  develop  them  further.  The  Chronicler's  writings 
furnish  good  illustration  of  this  tendency.  But  both  in  Judea 
and  in  Samaria  the  principal  effect  of  the  separation  lay  deeper 
than  the  ritual.  The  whole  Jewish  people,  from  the  beginning  of 
the  Greek  period  onward,  saw  itself  confronted,  close  at  hand,  with 
a  bitter  enemy  of  its  ow.ii  flesh  and  blood,  worshiping 
the  God  of  the  Patriarchs  and  holding  to  the  law  of 
Moses,  Here  was  a  breaking  up  of  the  family  of  Abraham  much 
more  distressing  in  its  character  than  the  dispersion  into  foreign 
lands.  And  this  was  at  just  the  time  when  some  of  the  best 
Gentile  faiths  and  philosophies  were  beginning  to  have  a  sympa- 
thetic hearing  in  Judea,  and  when  the  truth  which  the  Second 

ss  Cowley,  ill  tliii  Jciiuxh  Encyclopedia,  article  "  Siimaritans,"  p.  671,  oxiirosses  the  usual 
erroneous  view  when  ho  says:  "Manasseh's  advent  no  doubt  had  the  I'tToct  of  fixing  the 
Israolitisli  character  of  the  Samaritan  religion."  Hut  the  worsliip  had  been  "Israelitish  " 
all  the  time ;  it  was  just  t  his  which  had  led  to  all  tlio  bad  feeling. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  333 

Isaiah,  Malachi,  and  others  had  taught,  that  Yahw6  has  his  chil- 
dren in  every  race  and  nation,  was  becoming  still  better  under- 
stood. The  contrast  was  one  which  could  not  fail  to  have  its 
lasting  effect  on  the  thought  and  life  of  the  people.  In  particular, 
the  growth  of  sharply  defined  and  opposed  sects,  such  as  we  see  in 
process  of  formation  in  the  Maccabean  period  and  later,  was  greatly 
promoted.  The  Psalms  can  teach  us,  however,  that  a  large  body 
of  the  Jews  held  steadily  to  the  direct  and  well-considered  middle 
course,  continuing  in  a  wholly  worthy  manner  the  religious  tradi- 
tion which  they  had  received  from  the  great  teachers  of  the 
Persian  period.  Such  as  these  could  think  and  speak  of  the 
Samaritans  without  malice,  even  if  not  without  dislike.  The 
good-humored  raconteur  who  tells  the  tale  of  Judith  not  only 
makes  no  hostile  allusion  to  the  Shechemites  of  his  own  day,  but 
even  chooses  for  the  pseudonym  of  their  city  a  name  of  singularly 
good  omen — if  the  usually  accepted  T'iui^  ri'H  ,  "House  of  God," 
is  the  original  of  BervXova  (or  whatever  the  Greek  transcription 
may  at  first  have  been).  As  has  already  been  observed,  the  choice 
of  '-Manasseh"  for  the  name  of  Judith's  husband  is  certainly 
harmless  enough,  calculated  to  provoke  a  smile  rather  than  any- 
thing else,  under  the  circumstances.  The  more  carefully  the  story 
is  read,  the  more  the  reader  must  marvel  at  the  forbearance  of  its 
author,  in  this  regard.  There  was  repeated  opportunity  to  hint  at 
the  ill  omen  of  Shechem,  or  to  point  a  moral  at  the  expense  of  the 
Samaritans;  but  nothing  of  the  sort  is  done,  not  even  in  speaking 
of  the  counsel  taken  by  the  citizens,  or  in  the  episode  of  Achior 
the  Ammonite.  Both  the  city  itself  and  all  connected  with  it  are 
mentioned  invariably  with  respect.  And  yet  the  disguise  of  the 
pseudonym  must  have  been  transparent,  and  intended  to  be  so.^' 

XI.       THE    date    of    NEHEMIAH 

Since  the  sources  for  the  history  of  the  Jewish  Restoration, 
from  its  beginning  to  its  end,  are  so  very  meager,  it  is  doubly 
unfortunate  that  the  date  of  so  important  a  part  of  it  as  the  work 
of  Nehemiah  should  remain  uncertain.  In  my  Composition  of 
Ezra-Nehemidti,  I  was  obliged  to  give  up  the  attempt  to  answer 
the  question  whether  the  "Artaxerxes"  of  Nehemiah  was  Longi- 
manus  or  Mnemon.  The  only  evidence  which  we  then  possessed, 
in  favor  of  either  one  of  these  two  monarchs,  was  the  late  Jewish 

!>■  On  the  identity  of  "  Bethulia  "  with  Shechem,  see  the  reference  given  abovr.  p.  331. 


334  Ezra  Studies 

tradition  (Aramaic  story;  the  Chronicler)  which  made  him  out  to 
be  Artaxerxes  II.  But  (as  I  then  remarked)  this  tradition 
deserves  to  be  given  hardly  any  weight.  It  is  quite  possible,  for 
instance,  that  a  true  report  may  long  have  been  current  that  the 
Artaxerxes  of  Nehemiah  was  the  one  who  immediately  followed 
the  Darius  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah.  In  that  case,  the  same 
blunder  (of  about  a  century)  would  have  been  made  in  the  date 
of  the  building  of  the  wall  as  in  that  of  the  building  of  the  temple. 
Such  a  "tradition"  as  this  is  of  no  practical  value  until  it  is  con- 
firmed from  some  other  source.^^  Moreover,  it  is  very  likely  that 
the  choice  of  Artaxerxes  Mnemon  as  the  benefactor  of  Nehemiah 
was  simply  a  necessary  result  of  the  current  version  of  the  pre- 
ceding history.  With  Darius  I  transposed  to  his  place  before 
Cyrus,  and  the  theory  established  that  the  Jews  were  hindered  by 
force  from  building  the  temple,  until  the  time  of  Darius  II,  it 
was  quite  impossible  to  date  the  story  of  Nehemiah  in  the  time  of 
Artaxerxes  I. 

The  Elephantine  letter  now  gives  information  on  one  important 
point  touching  the  matter,  but  leaves  us  still  unable  to  decide 
finally  between  the  two  dates.  We  know  from  the  letter  that  in 
408  B.C.  the  governor  of  Samaria  was  named  Sanaballat,  and  that 
he  was  then  an  aged  man.  On  the  supposition  that  Nehemiah 
flourished  under  Artaxerxes  I,  this  Sanaballat  would  have  been 
in  the  prime  of  life  at  the  date  (444  B.C.)  when  the  wall  was  built. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  know  from  the  account  in  Josephus,  already 
discussed,  that  Sanaballat  II  was  governor  of  Samaria  at  about 

335  B.C.,  and  that  he  was  at  that  time  at  least  in  middle  life,  and 
possibly  far  advanced  in  years.  If  Nehemiah  is  supposed  to 
have  lived  in  the  time  of  Artaxerxes  II,  this  Sanaballat  could 
have  been  a  man  of  perhaps  twenty-five  years  of  age  at  the  date 
(384  b.  c.)  when  the  wall,  on  that  supposition,  would  have  been 
built.  The  book  of  Nehemiah  does  not,  indeed,  refer  to  its 
Sanaballat  as  the  governor  of  Samaria;  but  this  fact  is  of  little 
importance,  since  "the  Horonite"  is  doubtless  employed  as  a  mere 

ssFrom  the  lamentatioa  of  Nehemiah  nnd  his  friends  (l:3f.)  over  the  destruction  of 
the  city  wall,  some  have  wished  to  derive  an  argument  as  to  the  date,  assuming  that  a  recent 
destruction  is  referred  to.  But  the  argument  is  unwarranted.  The  expressions  used  in  tlie 
verse  are  stock  phrases  ;  compare  for  example  I  Mace.  3 :  45,  II  Mace.  1 :  8.  The  destruction 
referred  to  is  that  by  Nebuchadrezzar.  Nehemiah  may  really  have  hoard  of  it  then  for  the 
first  time,  but  wiiether  he  did  or  not  makes  no  ditl'ereuce.  It  is  possible  to  draw  howls  of 
woe  from  a  Shi'ite  Muslim,  at  the  present  day,  by  recounting  to  him  the  death  of  Hasan  and 
Husain ;  not,  however,  because  he  has  not  heard  the  story  already,  nor  because  their  martyr- 
dom is  a  recent  event. 


The  Exile  and  the  Restoration  335 

term  of  contempt.'''  We  may  regard  it  as  fairly  certain,  in  any 
case,  that  Nehemiah's  Sanaballat  was  in  fact  the  governor  of 
Samaria.*"  The  date  of  the  building  of  the  city  wall,  however, 
must  still  be  considered  an  open  question.  It  has  seemed  to  me 
much  more  likely  that  the  earlier  date  is  the  correct  one; 
because  the  age  which  it  gives  to  Sanaballat  seems  better  suited 
to  the  story,  and  because  of  the  intrinsic  probability  that  the 
repairing  of  the  wall  would  not  have  been  neglected  until  so  late 
a  date  as  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  II.  Hence  I  have  once  or  twice 
(pp.  1-40,  226)  spoken  of  the  "probability"  that  Nehemiah  lived 
in  the  time  of  Artaxerxes  Longimanus.  It  must  be  admitted, 
however,  that  these  reasons  are  not  conclusive.  It  is  still  open  to 
anyone  who  prefers  the  later  date  to  hold  to  it  until  we  have 
received  further  light. 

59 It  is  quite  fruitless  to  attempt  to  decide  whether  the  term  refers  to  Beth  Heron  or  to 
Horonaim  ;  the  one  is  as  lilcely  as  the  other. 

60 The  allusion  to  "The  army  of  Samaria"  in  Neh.  3:  34,  however,  I  believe  to  be 
a  contribution  by  the  Chronicler  ;  see  above,  pp.  225  f.  The  hostility  of  Sanaballat,  like  that 
of  his  allies  Tobiah  and  Gusmu,  was  political,  and  a  matter  of  course  under  the  circum- 
stances. Just  such  jealous  protest  is  sure  to  be  made  even  in  modern  times,  wherever  the 
building  of  new  fortifications  disturbs  the  existing  balance  of  power. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 

(It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  many  of  the  dates  are  only  approximate.) 
B.  c. 

722     End  of  the  Northern  Kingdom  of  Israel. 

701     Sennacherib  crushes  the  revolt  in  Palestine,  including  Judah. 
His  successors  hold  the  kings  of  Judah  in  vassalage,  and  make 
expeditions  through  the  land, 
c.  650    Psametik  I  opens  Egypt  to  foreigners. 
624    Scythian  invasion. 
608    Death  of  Josiah  at  Megiddo. 

Jehoahaz  carried  to  Egypt. 
605-602    Campaigns  of  Nebuchadrezzar  extending  into  Palestine. 
597     Siege  of  Jerusalem,  plundering  of  the  temple,  and  first  deporta- 
tion to  Babylonia, 
c.  590    Jewish  mercenaries  in  the  army  of  Psametik  II  (?  possibly  the 
army  of  Psametik  I,  fifty  years  earlier). 
586     Partial  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  burning  of  the  temple,  and 
second  deportation. 
Murder  of  Gedaliah  at  Mizpah. 

Flight  of  many  into  the  neighboring  regions,  and  to  Egypt. 
Repeopliug  and  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem,  beginning  soon  after 
the  destruction.     Erection  of  a  temporary  house  of  worship. 
555    Nabunaid's  accession. 
539    Cyrus  invades  Babylonia. 

Building  of  Jewish  temple  at  Elephantine;  certainly  before  the 
time  of  Cambyses,  and  perhaps  before  the  time  of  Cyrus. 
525    Cambyses  invades  Egypt. 
521     Darius  I  Hystaspis  ("Darius  the  Mede"). 
520    Haggai  and  Zechariah. 

Rebuilding  of  the  temple,  under  the  leadership  of  Zerubbabel. 
Jeshua,  son  of  Jehozadak,  high  priest. 
485    Xerxes. 

464    Artaxerxes  I  Longimanus. 
444    Nehemiah  rebuilds  the  wall  of  Jerusalem. 
Chaps.  1,  2,  4-6  of  the  book  of  Nehemiah. 
Sanaballat  I  ("the  Horonite")  governor  of  Samaria. 
424    Darius  II  Nothus. 
c.  415     Johanan  high  priest  in  Jerusalem. 
Bagohi  Persian  governor  of  Judea. 
Murder  of  Jeshua  in  the  temple. 
411     Destruction  of  the  temple  at  Elephantine. 

408    The  Jews  of  Elephantine  petition  successfully  for  the  rebuilding 
of  their  temple. 
Delaiah  and  Shelemiah,  the  sons  of  Sanaljallat  I,  in  charge  of 
affairs  at  Samaria. 

.337 


338  Ezra  Studies 

B.C. 

407     Revolt  of  Egypt  from  Persia. 
404     Artaxerxes  II  Mnemon. 
359     Artaxerxes  III  Ochus. 
336     Darius  III  Codomannus. 

Jaddiia  high  priest  in  Jerusalem. 
Sauaballat  II  governor  of  Samaria. 

Expulsion  of  Manasseh,  and  Samaritan  secession;  building  of  the 
temi^le  on  Mount  Gerizim.     Pentateuch  in  its  final  form. 
332    Palestine  under  Macedonian  rule. 
323     Ptolemy  I  Soter. 
c.  320    Pseudo- Jeremiah. 
312    Seleucus  I  Nicator. 

301     Palestine  securely  under  Egyptian  rule, 
c.  300     Story  of  the  Three  Youths,  written  in  Aramaic. 
285     Ptolemy  II  Philadelphus. 
281-261     Antiochus  I  Soter. 

Translation  of  the  Pentateuch  into  Greek,  at  Alexandria, 
c.  260    Aramaic  Story  of  Samaritan  intrigues  (Ezr.  4:8— 6: 14). 
c.  250    The  Chronicler. 

248     Antiochus  II  Theos  marries  Berenice,  daughter  of  Ptolemy  Phila- 
delphus (Dan:  2:43,  11:6). 
246-221     Ptolemy  III  Euergetes. 

Seleucid  kingdom  (the  "clay,"  Dan.  2:41-43)  broken   up,  and 
nearly  annihilated  by  the  Egyptian  power  (the  "iron"). 
c.  235     Dan.  1-6,  written  in  Aramaic. 
223-187     Antiochus  III  the  Great, 
c.  220    The  book  of  Ezekiel. 

c.  200    Story  of  the  Three  Youths  interpolated  in  the  Chronicler's  his- 
198     Palestine  securely  under  Seleucid  rule.  [tory  of  Israel, 

c.  180    Wisdom  of  Bar  Sira. 

175-164    Antiochus  IV  Epiphanes. 

168     Desecration  of  the  temple  and  cessation  of  the  worship. 
165    Restoration  of  the  worship,  ;by  Judas  Maccabaeus  and  his  fol- 
lowers. 
Old  Greek  translation  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh. 
164     Dan.  7-12  (the  author  wrote  chap.  7  in  Aramaic  and  chaps.  8  12 
in  Hebrew,  and  translated  chap.  1  into  Hebrew,  in  order  to 
unite  the  two  parts  inseparably). 
161     Building  of  Jewish  temple  at  Leontopolis  in  Egypt, 
c.  150    Old  Greek  translation  of  Daniel. 

143    Letter  from  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem  and  Judea  to  their  brethren 

in  Egypt  (II  Mace.  1:1-9). 
132     Antiochus  VII  Sidetes  besieges  Jerusalem  and  breaks  down  the 

wall  of  the  city. 
128    Death  of  Antiochus  VII  in  Parthia  (II  Mace.  1: 12-16). 
124     Second  letter  from  the  Jews  of  Judea  to  those  in  Egypt  (II  Mace 
1:10—2:18). 


ADDENDA  AND  CORRIGENDA 

P.  30.  Through  au  almost  unaccountable  slij),  made  in  preparing 
the  article  on  First  Esdras  for  the  AJSL.,  the  date  of  the  transposition 
of  Neh.  7:73-10:40  and  that  of  the  old  Greek  translation  of  the 
Chronicler's  work  were  put  in  the  last  century  instead  of  the  second 
centiu-y  B.C.,  both  in  the  account  of  the  origin  of  the  two  recensions  and 
in  the  table  at  the  end  of  the  article  (p.  35  in  this  book).  In  the  latter 
place,  the  correction  was  made  when  the  sheets  for  the  "Studies"  were 
printed  off;  but  in  the  other  passages  the  blunder  was  overlooked,  and 
still  stands.  Accordingly,  on  p.  30,  line  9  from  the  bottom,  instead  of 
''at  some  time  in  the  last  century"  read  ''early  in  the  second  century." 
The  same  correction  must  be  made  on  p.  34,  line  5  from  the  bottom. 

P.  54.  — The  original  reading  of  the  Greek  text  of  I  Esdr.  4:29  was 
certainly  this:    iOewpow  avros  'ATra/x-r^v,  k.  t.  e.     "I  myself  saw  Apama, 
etc.     By  an  easy  mistake  in  copying,  the  second  word  became  airov, 
whereupon   koI  had   to  be  inserted  (see  the  present   text  of   the  verse 
on  p.  43). 

P.  55.  — It  is  poi^sible  that  the  only  change  required  in  I  Esdr.  4:36 
at  the  point  where  I  have  conjectured  a  lacuna  (see  note  d)  is  a  change 
in  the  p u n c t  ua t  i o n .  If  we  put  a  period  after  the  word  "  tremble,"  and 
suppose  the  next  clause,  "And  with  her  is  no  error  at  all,"  to  introduce  a 
new  phase  of  the  subject,  the  result  is  fairly  satisfactory.  It  seems  to 
me  more  probable,  however,  that  something  has  been  accidentally 
omitted. 

P.  80,  bottom.  — It  is  very  much  to  be  desired  that  some  one  who  has 
the  time  and  equipment  for  the  task  should  undertake  to  identify  the 
portions  of  Theodotion's  translation  which  can  still  be  recognized  in  the 
remaining  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  some  books  two 
distinct  Greek  versions  have  been  preserved,  one  of  which  can  probably 
be  shown  to  be  Theodotion's.  In  other  cases  it  is  certainly  true  either 
that  the  sole  extant  version  is  his,  or  else  that  his  work  has  been  used  to 
supplement  and  correct  the  older  translation.  Transliterations  which 
from  their  number  and  character  can  only  be  his  are  very  noticeable  in 
the  books  of  Kings,  for  instance.  One  reason  why  Theodotionic  readings 
have  been  adopted  in  certain  passages,  here  and  there  throughout  the 
Old  Testament,  supplanting  the  readings  of  an  older  text,  is  this,  that 
the  abbreviations  for  "Septuagint"  (O)  and  "Theodotion"  (0)  used  in 
the  critical  apparatus  of  the  early  Jewish  and  Christian  scholars  and 
editors  were  constantly  confused. 

P.  99,  middle.  — The  tradition  which  attests  that  this  ^B  Syr.  Eth. 
text  in  the  Chronicles-Ezra  books  is  that  of  Origen's  Hexapla  is  in  fact 
about  as  strong  as  any  such  tradition  could  possibly  be.  The  comparison 
(which  I  have  not  made)  of  the  quotations  from  these  books  in  Origen's 
writings  could  not.  add  anything  essential  to  the  evidence.     If  the  text 

339 


340  Ezra  Studies 

should  be  found  to  agree,  the  corroboration  would  be  interesting;  but  if 
on  the  contrary  another  type  of  text  should  be  found  to  have  been 
employed,  the  fact  could  have  no  weight  whatever  against  the  tradition. 
Hundreds  of  learned  writers  on  Biblical  subjects  in  the  United  States 
and  England,  for  instance,  habitually  quote  the  King  James  version  of 
the  Bible  —  that  being  the  version  with  which  they  and  their  readers 
have  long  been  familiar;  while  if  they  had  to  select  a  standard  English 
text  for  a  polyglot  edition  of  the  Bible,  they  would  one  and  all  employ 
the  Kevised  Version.     The  parallel  is  a  good  one. 

P.  107,  line  12  from  the  bottom.^ It  should  be  added,  that  the 
Hebrew  reading  which  lay  before  Aquila  was  of  course  "lt3"«J^i  wot  t3"l"-5<  • 

P.  131,  note  V.  —  It  is  a  somewhat  similar  use  of  the  "3  of  accompani- 
ment" when  in  the  old  Aramaic  inscriptions  found  at  Zenjirli  the  vassal 
king  tells  how  he  has  been  wont  to  run  "beside  the  chariot-wheel" 
(bZibrC)  of  his  lord  and  master.  Perhaps  the  Chronicler's  favorite  and 
peculiar  DVH  DV  ?  etc.,  may  also  be  included  here. 

P.  191,  middle. — Another  example  of  the  survival  of  this  Aramaic 
ending  in  a  modern  Syrian  place-name  is  afforded  by  the  name  of  the 
village  'Areya  in  the  Lebanon,  originally  5<^"i3?,  "laurel  trees." 

P.  191,  note  t.  —  I  now  see  that  this  very  same  idiom  is  found  in  the 
Aramaic  papyri  edited  by  Sayce  and  Cowley;  thus,  "one  named 
Petosiris,"  rT-lT  ^"l"'Clt:3,  K  4,  8f.;  "Teba  by  name,"  ri'JIij  KZH,  K  12  f. 

P.  195,  bottom. — Compare  especially  Ezr.  7:8  and  10:9,  where  the 
idiom  is  also  used. 


INDICES 


I.   MATTERS  AND  NAMES 


Abbreviations  in  Greel:  MSS.,  138,    279, 

339 
"Ac-cents"     of     the    niassoretic     Hebrew 

misused  as  punctuation  marks.  118  f. 
Alexander  the  Great,  40  f.,  45,  320,  330  f. 
Andreas,  C.  F.,  175,  177 
Apama,  daughter  of  Artabazos  III,  40  ff., 

339 
Apama,  daughter  of  Spitamenes,   40  ff. 
Afjuila,   66  f.,   72,   107.  274,   340 
Arabic  version  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.,   64 
Aramaic  Story  in  Ezra,  period  to  wliich 

it  belongs,  152,  161  ff. 
—  its  tendency,  154  ff.,  287,  306,  326 
Aramaic  passages  joined  to  Hebrew,  29  f., 

58,  157  ff.,  178  ff.,  225 
Aristeas,  letter  of,  151,  153  f..  295 
Artaxerxes  I,  38  f.,  48,  59,  140,  149,  170  f., 

307.  334  f. 
Artaxerxes  II,  38,  140,  170,  205,  239,  249. 

260,   263,   318,   320  f.,   334  f. 
Arta.xerxes  III,   38,   318 
Assiian,    Aramaic     papjTi     from,    ifil  ff., 

170  ff.,    181,    198  f.,    340 
Astyages,  38,  287 


Jews  in,  286  ff.,  290  ff.,  2£ 
Bagoas,    Bagoses), 


HI,  215,  218, 


Babylonia,  Jews  in,  286  ff.,  290  ff.,  295  f. 

310,  317 
Bagohi    ( 

318  ff.,  331 

—  as  a  Jewish  name,  167 
Ball,  C.  J.,  21,  43,  192 
Batten,  L.  W.,  62,  123 
Belshazzar,  38,  302 
Benzinger,  J.,  62,  73  f.,  1 

220,   238,   242 
Berliner,  A.,   292 
Bemheim,    E.,    264 
Bertholdt,  L.,  14 
Bertholet,  A.,  15,  21, 

135,    142,    144,    184, 

253,  262,  277  f. 
"Bethulia"  a  p.seudonym  of  Shechem,  331, 

333 
Bod-Ashtart  in.scription,  176 
Budde.  K.,  144 

Canon  of  sacred  scripture,  among  the  Jews, 
33  ff. 

—  in  the  Syriac  church,  2,  33 

Catena,   Syriac,  containing  extracts  from 

I  Esdras  and  Nehemiah,  4  ff. 
Cheyne,  T.  K.,  311 
Chronicler,  the,  his  literary  habits,  20,  27 

ff.,   115,   120  ff.,   133,   135,  157  ff.,  213  ff., 

230  ff.,  270,  282 


38,  62,   111  f.,  123  f., 
191,    193,    246,    250, 


Chronicler,  the,  his  characteristics  as  editor, 
213  ff. 

—  apologetic  aim,  135,  155  ff.,  168  f.,  173, 
178,  184,  208  ff.,  227,  230  f.,  238.  262  f., 
287,  297  f.,  326,  332 

—  didactic  purpose,  237,  251 

—  interest  in  the  Levitical  institutions, 
210  f.,    234  ff..    280 

—  hsts  of  names,  211  f.,  214,  222,  239, 
249  f.,   265 

—  imaginary  sources,  141,  223,  227  ff., 
242  ff. 

—  fondness  for  the  number  tu-elve,  222, 
246  f.,  250,  260,  266  ff.,  274,  276,  280, 
284 

Chronicles,  Books  of,  manner  of  separation 

from  Ezr.-Neh.,  116  f. 
Cobl),  W.  H.,  28,s 
Codex  A  Alexiindrinus,  79,  91  ff.,  105,  169. 

172.  279 
Codex  5<  Sinaiticus,  91  ff. 
Codex  B  Vaticanus,  54,   62,  65,  75,  80,  90, 

92  ff.,    136,    169,    178  f.,   279 
Codex  N  Basiliano-Vaticanus,  91  ff.,   136, 

169 
Coele-Syria,  S3 
ComUl,  C.  H..  14,  16,  21,  47,  97,  142,  144, 

292 
Cowley,  A.  E.,  163    ff.,167,  172,  327,  332 
Cyaxares,  38,  287 
Cyprian.  Ill 
Cyrus,  38,  48,  57,  59  f.,  117,  135  f.,    140  ff., 

155,   288,    301  ff. 

—  edict  in  favor  of  the  Jews,  144,  239 

Dalman,  G.,  51 

Daniel,  Book  of,  dependent  on  I  Esdras,  48 

—  chaps.  1-6  older  than  chaps.  7-12,  48  f.. 
162 

■ —  "offlcial  documents"  in  the  book.  146 

—  character  of  its  Aramaic,  161  ff. 

—  old  Greek  version,  made  by  translator 
of  I  Esdras,  84  f.;  its  date.  85 

—  Theodot  ion's  translation.  68,  78,  85 
Darius  I  Hystaspis  ("the  Mede"),  38,  48, 

59,   135  f.,   140  f.,  200,  287,  302  f.,   334 
Darius  II,   38  f.,   59  f.,    140,   171,   239,   303. 

320  f.,    334 
Darius  III,  40  f.,  45,  249,  320  f.,  330  f. 
"Darius"  substituted  for  "Cyrus,"   57  ff., 

125,  130 
Delaiah,  son  of  Sanaballat  I,  250,  330 
Deportation  of  Israelites  by  Sargon,  326  f. 
Dillmann,   .V.,    100 
Dispersion,    tlie    Jewish,     153,     167,     286. 

289.  293  ff. 


341 


342 


Ezra  Studies 


Documents,  official,  in  Ezra,  140  flf. 

—  use  of  such  for  literary  embellishment, 
145  flf.,  206,  231  f.,  245 

Driver,  S.  R.,  vii,   14,   112,   126,   142,    197, 

230,  241,  322 
Duhm,  B.,  286,  311 

"Ebal"  substituted  by  the  Jews  for  the 

original  reading  "Gerizim,"  322  f  ,  329 
Edomites,  27,  57,  309,  328 
Egypt,  Jews  in,  294  f.,  298,  301,  310 
Egyptian  recension  of  Greek  text  of  Chroii.- 

Ezr.-Neh.,  43,  75  f.,  80,  86  f.,  101  ff.,  127, 

136flf.,  179 
Elephantine,  Jewish  Aramaic  letters  from, 

140,  163  f.,   167,   175  f.,  190,  250,  316  flf., 

324,  328  flf. 

—  the  Jewish  temple  there,  176,  301,  315  flf. 
Eliashib  the  high  priest,  264,  318  f.,  321, 

330 
Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  95,  203 
Esarhaddon,  169 
Esdras  I,  in  the  Hexapla,  2  flf. 

—  theories  of  the  book  held  by  scholars, 
12  flf. 

—  supposed  not  to  be  extant  in  Greek,  13 

—  general  neglect  of  it,  14  f.,  20,  65 

—  its  true  nature,  18  flf.,  82  flf. 

—  contains  a  portion  of  the  Chronicler's 
narrative  lost  from  canonical  OT,  25  flf., 
115flf. 

—  origin  as  a  separate  "book,"  30  flf.,  81, 
269 

"Esdras  II,"  in  the  Hexapla,  3 
Eshmunazar  inscription,  185 
Esther,  Book  of,  dependent  on  I  Esdras, 
47  f. 

—  "oflQcial  documents"  incorporated,  146 
Ethiopic  version  of  I  Esdras,   100  f.,   137, 

169,   178  f. 
Eupolemus,  49,  82  f. 
Ewald,  H.,  14,  16 
Excision,    by    editors,    of    a    troublesome 

passage,  33  f.,  88,  115,  184 
"Exile,"  the  term  ordinarily  applied  in  the 

OT  to  the  Jewish  Dispersion,  286,  289, 

296  f.,   302,   305,   308  flf.,   314 

—  exiles  in  Babylonia,  285  flf.,  290  flf., 
301  flf. 

Ezekiel,  Book  of,  a  pseudepigraplion,   288 
Ezra   the  scribe-potentate,    49,    140,    199, 
205,  237,  243,  247,  259  f.,  263,  284 

—  "Memoirs"  of,  156,  175,  238  flf. 

—  story  without  historical  value,  242  flf., 
262  ff. 

Ezra-Nehemiah,  Book  of,  manner  of  its 
separation  from  Chronicles,  116  f. 

—  misplacement  of  certain  chapters  of 
the  Ezra  narrative,  253  ff. 

—  date  of  this  transposition,  258 

—  chronology  of  the  Ezra  story,  260 

Field,  F.,  66  ff.,  80  f. 

First  person,  used  in  imitating  personal 

narratives  and  documents,  146,  244  flf., 

272 


P>aenkel,  S.,  176 

Fritzsche,  O.  F.,  15,  20  f.,  25,  43,  52,  54, 
57,  86 

Geissler,  J.,  241  f.,  245  f. 

Gerizim,  Mount,  the  seat  of  the  blessing 

in  Deut.,  322  f. 
"Gerizim"  altered  by  the  Jews  to  "Ebal," 

322  f.,  329 
Gloss  added  by  original  narrator,  185 
Governors  of  Judea  in  Persian  period,  141, 

263,  267,  283,  306,  318  f. 
Graetz,  H.,  142 
Greek   MSS.,    variations    in    orthography, 

70,  95,  179 

—  extent  of  accidental  corruption,  74  f., 
77,    78  f.,   93  flf.,   169  f. 

Greek  version,  old,  of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh., 
82  flf. 

—  its  date,  35,  49,  82  f. 

—  loss  of  greater  part,  35  f.,81,  269 

—  unknown  to  Theodotion,  81  f. 

—  made  in  Egypt,  83 

—  its  character,  83  f.,  179  f.,  182 

—  quality  of  its  Semitic  text,  84 
Greek  version,  old,  of  Daniel,  84  f. 

—  its  date,  85 

Greek  versions,  misuse  of,  65,  112 

Grotius,  16,  66  ff. 

Guthe,    H.,    14,    16,    21  f.,    52,    54,    62,    112, 

120  ff.,    144,    191,    193,    279 
Gwyi^n,  J.,  4 

Had  AD   inscription,    189 

Haggai,  Book  of,  historical  data  from,  285, 

303  ff. 
Hanani(ah),    favorite   name  with   Chron., 

226,  233 
Haupt,  P.,  122 
Hebrew  text,  recension  of  second  century 

A.  D.,  87  ff. 
"Hellas,"  designation  of  Seleucid  Empire, 

45 
Hexapla  of  Origen,  1  ff.,  65  ff.,  9  6  ff.,  3  39 
Hexaplar  "LXX"  text,  its  character,  99, 

105,  169,  178,  279 
Hexaplar   Syriac   version,    1  ff.,    67,    96  f ., 

99  f. 

—  in  I  Esdras,  6  f. 

—  in  Nehemiah,  100 

High  priests,  Jewish,  in  the  Persian  period, 
319  ff. 

Hiram,  King  of  Tyre,  82,  146,  210,  221  f. 

Hiram  (Huram),  the  Phoenician  crafts- 
man, 222 

Historians,  Jewish,  their  literary  habits, 
145  ff. 

Holscher,  G.,  83,  147,  150,  154 

Hoonacker,  A.  van,  vii,   142  f. 

Howorth,  H.,  vii,  3,  4,  16  ff.,  21,  59,  67 

Isaiah,  the  Second,  153,  288,  309,  311  f., 
314,  328 

Jaddua  the  high  priest,  249,  319  ff„  330 
Jeremiah,  Book  of,  late  origin  of  a  large 
part,  285  ff.,  297,  299  f.,  302 


Indices 


3-t3 


Jerome,  13,  87 

Jerusalem  and  Judea,  exajigerated  account 

of   depopulation   of,    209,    238,    285  If., 

297  tf.,     328 
Jeshua,  son  of  Jehozadak,  131,  306,  319 
"Joachim"  in  I  Esdr.  5:  (!,  result  of  scribal 

error,  28,  131 
Johanan  the  high  priest,  2(!4,  318  If.,  331 
Josephus,   32  f.,   43,   55.   81,    102,    10(!,    114, 

137,  147,  150,  154,  170,  179,  255,  317  11., 

328  fif. 
Joshua  the  Stylite,  Chronicle  of,  7,  185,  290 

Kautzsch,  E.,  116 

'•King of  Heaven,"  27.  57,  59 

Kittel,    R.,    62,  73  f.,  92,   110  ff.,  117,  218, 

220,  238 
Kittel's  Biblia  Hebraica,  110  ff.,  1  19,  221 
Klosterraann,  A.,  viii,  65,  76,  107  If.,  122 
Konig,  Ed.,  viii,  21 

Kosters,  W.  H.,  vii,  14,  143,  254,  298,  300 
Kraetzschmar,  R.,  242 
Kuenen,  A.,  142 

Lagarde,  p.  a.  de,  16,  48,  54,  80,  109 
Latin  version,  old,  of  I  Esdras,  105,  111, 

127,  137 
Law  of  Moses,  represented  by  Chron.  as 

"restored"    from    time    to    time,    after 

periods  of  neglect,  237,  247,  261  f. 
• —  its  restoration  by  "Ezra,"  259  ff. 
Leontopolis,  Jewish  temple  at,   317  f. 
Levites,  singers,  and  porters,  their  status 

the  same  in  Ezr.-Neh.  as  in  Chron.,  236, 

278 
Lohr,  M.,  240 

Lucca  codex  of  Latin  version,  49,  54,  137 
Lucian's  recension,   16,   65,   70  ff.,  90,  105 

fif.,  136f.,  169,  173,  179,  198,  274,  279 
Lupton,  13,  15,  21 

Maccabees   I,   character  and   purpose  of 
its  author,  147  ff. 

—  the  incorporated  documents,  143,  147  ff. 
206 

—  genuineness  of  last  chapters,  148  f. 

—  trustworthiness  of  chaps.  8  and  15,  149 
Maccabees    II,    the    two    prefl.xed    official 

letters,  317 
Maccabees  III,  documents  in,  147 
Mae.s,  A.,  his  Syr.-Hex.  codex,  1  ff.,  99 

—  his  peculium  syrorum,  3 
Malachi,  prophecy  of,  312  ff. 
Manasseh  the  renegade,  320,  324  ff.,  331 
Marquart,  J.,  41,  43  f.,  48,  59 

Marti,  K.,  62,  187f.,  191  ff.,  195,  286,  292 
Massoretic  recension,  87  ff. 

—  excellence  of   its   text   in   Aramaic  of 
Ezra,  183;    in  the  Ezra  story,  264 

Median     kingdom    supposed     to    precede 

Persian,  38,  135  f.,  287,  302 
Metrical  form  in  Aramaic  compositions,  47 
Meyer,  Ed.,  vii  f.,   38,   144  ff.,   175,   195  ff., 

206,  270,  323 
Mez,  A.,  102 


Milan  codex  of  Syr.-Hex.  version,  1  f. 
Mitchell,  H.  G.,  259 
Moore,  G.  F.,  331 
Moidton,  J.  H.,  51 

Nabatean  immigrants,  3  09,  328 
Nabatean  inscriptions,  162,  165 
Names  of  persons,  their  significance  among 

the  Jews,  1 66  ff . 
Neapolitan  Synopsis,  49,  254 
Nebuchadnezzar,  156,  171,  191 
Nehemiah,  character  of,  226  f.,  248 

—  as  sketched  by  the  Chronicler,   248  ff., 
259,  263,  298,  330 

—  story  of,  141,  227,  307 

—  Chron. 's  additions  to  it  in  chaps.   1-6, 
225  ff.,  307 

—  interpolation  of  his  name  in  the  story 
of  Ezra,  258,  267,  269,  282  f. 

Nerab,  old  Aramaic  inscriptions  from,  164, 

185 
Nestle,  E.,  16,  96 
Niese,  B.,  149  f. 
Noldeke,  Th.,  41,  142,   149,   166,   168,   173, 

176,  200 
Numerals  represented  by  Greek  letters,  138 

Onias  the  high  priest,  83 
OreUi,  C.  von,  241,  244 
Origen's  text  of  the  "LXX,"  4,  64  f.,  91  ff., 
136  f.,  339 

Palestinian   Syr.   Lectionary,   accidental 

transposition  of  certain  passages,  257 
Palniyrene  Tariff  inscription,  165 
Papyri,  Aramaic,  from  Egypt,  140,  161  ff., 

170  ff.,  173  ff.,  186,  191  f. 
Paul  of  Telia,  1  ff.,  96,  99  ff. 
Persian  kings,  order  of,  according  to  Jews 

of  Greek  period,  38  f.,  135  f.,  140  f.,  160, 

184,  287 
Persian  words  in  Aramaic  of  Ezra,  173  ff. 
Pohlmann,  16,  66 
Priest-Code,  the,  an  imaginary  document, 

196  f.,  262,  288,  292 
Psalms,   importance  of,   for  the   religious 

history  of  Israel,  313,  333 
Psametik  I  opens  Egypt  to  foreigners,  294 
Ptolemy  I,  40  ff. 
Ptolemy  VII,  83 
Punctuation  of  Hebrew  OT,  118  f. 

Religion  of  Israel  in  the  Persian  period, 

289,  291,  307  ff. 
"Remnant"  of  Israel,  133,  308 
Renan,  E.,  21 
Reuss,  Ed.,  21 
Ryssel,  V.,  142 

Sachau,  Ed.,  163,  167  f.,  176 
Samaritans,    142,    147.    151,    153  ff.,    160  f., 

168  f..      171  ir..      17S,      182  ir.,      186,      209, 

212,   226,   235  f.,   247,  249,   2N7,   298.   317, 

321  ff. 
Samaritan   Pentateucii,  323  f.,  326,  32s  f.. 

332 
Sanaballat  I,  168,  212,  226,  250,  330,  334  f. 


344 


Ezra  Studies 


Sanaballat  II,  320.  330  f.,  334 
"Sanabassar,"  123,  136  ff. 
Sayce.  A.  H.,  163 
Schrader,  E.,  vii,  14 
Schurer,  E.,  14,  21,  82,  153  f. 
Scythians,  invasion  of,  295 
Seleucus  I,  40  ff. 

"Septuagint,"  objection  to  use  of  the 
term,  17 

—  meaning  in  Syriac  MSS.,  2 
"Servant  of  Yahw6,"  314 

"Seventy  years"  of  exile,  120,  135  f.,  141, 

285  f. 
Shalmanassar,  169  ff.,  182 
Shecliem,  212,  236,  316,  322  ff. 
Sheshbazzar,    57  f.,    60,    123,    136  ff.,    158, 

168,  171,  175,  263,  306 

—  identification  with  Zerubbabel,  306 
Sidon,  destruction  of,  297 
Siegfried,  C.  vii,  62,  111,  144,  226 
Smith,  H.  P.,  vii,  143,  259,  288,  327 
Stade,  B.,  142 

Straclv,  H.  L.,  14,  187,  198 
Susa,  39  f.,  45,  57,  59 
Swete,  H.  B.,  37,  68  f.,  84  f.,  96  f.,  106 
Symmachxis,  66  f.,  104,  107  f.,  129,  274 
Syro-Palestinian     recension,      43,      86  f., 
101  ff.,  127,  136ff.,  170,  179 

Tabnit  inscription,  85,  185 

Tendency  of  early  Jewish  narrators,  147, 
150  ff. 

Tetrapolis,  171,  183 

Thamasios,  44 

Theodoret,  67,  105 

Theodotion,  author  of  canonical  Greek  ver- 
sion of  Chron.-Ezr.-Neh.,  3  f.,  11,  17, 
66  ff.,  87  ff.,  91  ff.,  169,  183,  264,  280 

—  his  habit  of  transliteration,  69  ff., 
78  ff.,  339 

—  gradual  removal  of  his  transliterations 
from  Greelv  texts,  78  ff.,  93,  98,  339 

—  occasional  superiority  of  his  Hebrew 
text,  72  ff.,  87  f. 

—  his  version  of  Daniel,  68,  78 

—  traces  of  his  work  in  other  OT  books' 
80  f.,  339 


Three  Youths,  Story  of  the,  37  ff. 

—  effect  of  its  presence  in  I  Esdras,  12,  19, 
33  f. 

—  evidence  of  its  interpolation,  18  ff. 

—  character  of  its  Greek,  21  ff. 

— •  interpolated  in  original   Semitic   text, 
20  ff.,  161 

—  written  in  Aramaic,  23  ff. 

—  how  attached  to  the  Chronicler's  nar- 
rative, 25  ff.,  56  ff. 

—  little    altered    by    interpolator,    25  ff., 
37,  45,  56  ff. 

—  its  date,  42,  44,  162 

— -  date  of  interpolation,  37,  44,  49 

—  not  a  Jewi.sh  composition,  45  f. 

—  belongs  to  "wisdom  literature,"  46  f. 
Thucydides,  148  t. 

"Tirshatha,"    non-committal    title    used 

only  by  the  Chronicler,   257,   2  63,   267, 

282  f.,  306 
Traditions  of  Persian  period,   lacking  in 

Jerusalem,  141,  156,  228,  319 
Transposition,   accidental,  of  passages  in 

copying  MSS.,  257 
Transposition,  indicated  in  old  Syriac  MSS. 

by  diacritical-marks,  7 
Twelve,  the  Chronicler's  favorite  number, 

222,    246  f.,    250,    260,    266  ff.,    274,    276, 

280,  284 

Vessels  of  the  temple,  their  number,  138 

Wellhausen,  J.,  38,  142  f.,  149,  156,  254, 

298 
Whiston,  16,  66 
Wilcken,  41 

Xerxes,  38  f.,  48,  59,  141,  200 

Yawan  (Javan),  as  a  designation  of  the 
Seleucid  Empire,  45 

Zechariah,  Book  of,  historical  data  from, 

285  f.,  303  ff. 
Zenjirli,    old   Aramaic   inscriptions   from, 

164,  340 
Zerubbabel,  38  f.,  46,  48  f.,  58  ff.,  131,  168, 

175,  283,  285,  300,  306 
Zockler,  15,  21 


II.  LEXICAL  AND  GRAMMATICAL 


apxaiJ-oii.  (as  an  Aramaism)  51,57 

Pia  76  f. 

itai^opoi'   56 

eyKaivia    78 

ifiaSapioiTa    107,  340 

eva\etfji    79 

eJraAAd/jir)i'    10  7 

ejTopxo?   125,  174  f. 

eixuSiai   78 

KoiAt)  Xvpia   83 

Ai>/(   78 

avv  (rendering  Jnii)  with  accusative  107 

(ruferi^etc   78 

Tore  (rendering  "j'^'li^)  23  f.,  50 

it>a(T(X   67,  76 


i5  interchanged  with  i ,   as  preformative 

186 
55  supplanting  preformative  n  162,  165 
2X  "counselor"  222 
b'J1.1X  '<P>^rvp  123 
■JID'nX  6apeiK6s   77,  266 
S^DOISiC   eVapxoi    174  f.,   190 
oflDX  f'Tcfteo-i!  175,  187 
JT'^IS  (Kloss)   185,  200 
Ti'^Wifi  "  fire  offerings  "  192 
DTIJS  governing  direct  object  274 
TCJljJ  omitted  by  Chron.  122 


Indices 


345 


XS'lCS  "colonnade"  81,  175  f.,  189 

2  of  accompaniment  131,  340 

•ji-jXn  23  f.,  50 

bnn  Babylonia  120,  151,  191,  265 

D3?I3  bn  "reporter"  171,  181,  190,  200 

Ti^br^  "Dispersion"  297 

S^I'^T  "judges"  180  ff. 

■JTaDn"!  SP«XM   77,  26(5 

n—   as  ending  of  infln.  (Heb.  qal,  Aram. 

peal  stem)   190 
ah-  162 

1  explicative  50,  194,  265 
T  and  i  confused  by  scribes  69 
^—  as  ending  of  imperf .  3d  plur.  in  Aram. 

186  f.,  188 

n:yDn.  nrsi  i-te,  ise,  i88 

I2"jn  "lay"  187 

S'Oyti   "official  report"  (also  Dan.  6:3) 
200 

i5'^bDTC2    TfTpatroMrai    171,    183 

iJ'^—    Aram.  plur.    ending,    surviving    in 

names  of  SjTian  towns  191,  340 
■Jl"!  Seleucid  Empire  45 

TCn"^  (hithp.)   131 

b:i  jussive  (Tabnit)  85 

bnp  bD  187 
nb-  162 

b  "namely"  121,  124,  273 
b  used  to  continue  constructions  intro- 
duced in  another  way  125,  193,  197,  199 

s?:3b  189 

"   BITQ  228  f. 

c-^sbma  123 

r\:n'Q  -raid-  74 

CnD  "fi-Q  160 

TD^Sia  "distinctly"  268 

bi;  (Phoen.  and  Aram.)  85 

"ibi:  84  f. 

bniO  (saphel)   192 

mn3  nny  83, 174  f.,  206 

b  ny  usedbyChron.  126,  130 


riSISn  "^"ar  Samaritans  184,  236 

D-MnS   'l-SeYMa    177 

CTTip   74,  88 

"p  (Phoen.)  eiiciii'  185 

ai:p  (s>T.)=s^  +  inp  i85 

rT^"iP  (plural)  "cities"  186 

12^31  "goods"  121 

I^TIJ  •Dispersion"  297 

5<">i"'TiJ  (intrans.)  "be  finished"   195 

-l-^tj   130 

tJITlJ  for  IIJ-CTIJ  138 

□bllj  (stative  pea/)  192 

■jiTQIU  the  province  Samaria  186,  188,  220 

Qi;t2  following  a  dual  139 

f  IpTp  substituted  by  massoretes  88 

i^TlJ  (Aram.)  used  redundantly  51,  189 

■jIlC  (Phoen.)  "colonnade"  176 

r^lJJ-llZJ  "banishment"  199 

"12212113  138 

Accusative,  adverbial  188,  197,  268  (noted) 

Article  omitted  after  bs   124,  272,  274 

Construct  state,  noun  governing  two  or 
more  co-ordinate  genitives  276,  278 

Ellipsis    195,  197,  270  f.,  273  ff.,  340 

Epistolary  perfect  tense   188 

Haphel  signifying  entrance  into  a  con- 
dition  187,     195 

Hebraisms  in  Aramaic  of  Ezra  and  Daniel 
189 

Infin.  construct  ending  in  ath,  in  Aramaic 
165  f. 

Passive  voice  replaced  by  indef.  third 
plur.  active   50,  280 

Plural   of  compounds   188 

Sibilants  replaced  by  dentals  in  Aramaic 
163  ff. 

Subject,  indef.,  expressed  by  third  sing, 
of  verb   269 

Suffix,  proleptic,  in  late  Hebrew  222 

Third  person  instead  of  second,  in  direct 
address   193 

Verbs  signifying  precaution,  etc.,  con- 
strued without  a  negative  particle   188 

Vocalization,  massoretic,  distinguishing 
divine  from  human   195 

Vowel  a  occasionally  becoming  <i  in  later 
pronunciation  of  Jewish  Aramaic  194 


346 


Ezra  Studies 


III.  PASSAGES  INCIDENTALLY  DISCUSSED 

(Passages  marked  with  an  asterisk  *  are  those  in  which  some  emendation  of    the 
Hebrew  text  is  suggested.) 


Leviticus 


26:34  f. 
26:  43 

10:  17 
11:30* 
27:4  * 
32:21 


PAGE 

286 
286 

Deuteronomy 

46,  55 

322  f.,  326 

322  f.,  326 

326 


Joshua 

8:30*  322  f.,  326 

Judges 


10:27* 
30:8 


10:24* 
15:10* 


I  Samuel" 


II  Samu  1 


I  Kings 


II  Kings 


5:6 
10:2  f. 
17:24ff. 
21:18,  26 
23:24ff. 
24:13  f. 
24:14ff. 
25:8ff. 
25:9* 

25:8 

42:  6  f. 

42:22ff.* 

43:14* 

44:28 

45:  1* 

46:11* 

48:9flf.* 

48:14* 

48:20* 

49:8ff. 

61:1  fr. 

25:11  f. 
29:  10 
29:  14 

52:28 


Isaiah 


Jeremiah 

209, 
209, 


216 
217 

146 

146 

327  f. 

72 

88 

299 

209 

209 

300 

314 
314 
309 
288 
288 
288 
314 
309 
288 
288 
314 
314 


2S6,  302 

286,  302 

286 


Micah 


Nehemiah 


PAGE 

PAGE 

1:2 

193 

7:43* 

279 

Haggai 

7:48* 

89 

1:1* 

306 

11:8* 

110 

1:14* 

306 

11:17* 

110 

2:2* 

306 

12:11* 

319  ff. 

2:3 

285,  303 

12:23 

141 

2:16* 

304 

12:36 

249,  260,  2S0 

2:21* 

Zechariah 

306 

13:28  f. 

142,  249,  321, 
I  Chronicles 

328  ff. 

1:12 

2ii 

5f.,  303 

2:52f. 

71, 

73,  76 

6:10 

292 

9:1* 

229 

7:5 

285  f. 

21:20 

75,  112 

7;  7 

286 

28:19 

276,  282 

Malachi 

28:20* 

73,  87 

1:11 

313  f. 

29:6flf. 

255,  262,  266  f.,  268 

Psalms 

II  Chronicles 

29:2 

53 

2:  12  ff. 

82,  146,  222 

Esther 

4:16 

222 

1:  1-3 

48,  50 

13:2* 

217 

13:9ff.* 

235  f. 

Daniel 

14:13f 

74 

2:4 

185 

19:7 

56 

2:5 

84 

19:8* 

238 

3:29 

84  f. 

22:1 

74 

3:96  (LXX) 

8  5 

24:26 

212 

4:  16,  25  fl. 

146 

26:6flF. 

216 

4:34 

57 

32:32* 

220 

5:30 

38 

33:19* 

229 

6:  1 

38,  48,  135  f.,  141 

35:19* 

74,  87  ff. 

6:2 

48,   141 

35:21 fl 

221 

6:29 

38,  48 

36:8* 

72, 

89,  217 

9:1 

38,  287 

36:21 

286 

9:25 

136 

36:22f 

116f. 

10:  1 

38 

11:  1 

38 

Tobit 

11:2* 

45 

3:llf. 
7:11 

59 
2,  36 

Ezra 

14:5 

161 

2:40 

279 

2:46* 

89 

I  Maccabees 

7:9 

190 

1:54 

85 

10:6 

264,  321 

5:49 
14:9* 

74 
24,  53 

Nehemiah 

16: 23  f 

231 

1:2  f. 

301 

1 :  3  f . 

334 

II  Maccabees 

2:7-9a 

225 

2:13 

249 

3:15 

108 

Ecclesiasticus 

3:33-38 

225  f.,  335 

50:26 

326 

4:17* 

112 

5:13 

224 

Enoch 

6:  16  ir. 

226  f.,  248 

89:  72 

258 

Date  Due 


^^ 


